In The Eye of The Beholder
by Authorship
Summary: It's supposed to be the last day of Shisui's life. In a way, it is. To Konoha, Uchiha Shisui is missing, assumed dead. But to the newly-founded Konoha, Uchiha Shisui is a new face that emerged in the midst of chaos. A stranger from nowhere with the eyes of an Uchiha and the speed of a Senju, a young man who knows both too much and too little to be trusted.
1. A World Of

**It's supposed to be the last day of Shisui's life.**

**In a way, it is.**

**To Konoha, Uchiha Shisui is missing, assumed dead.**

**But to the newly-founded Konoha, Uchiha Shisui is a new face that emerged in the midst of chaos. A stranger from nowhere with the eyes of an Uchiha and the speed of a Senju, a young man who knows both too much and too little to be trusted.**

…...

A/N-

"It's like hurtling down a rollercoaster while a madman is trying to eat your face"

_-Katlou303, my beloved and eternally patient Beta_

Warnings: Graphic Depictions of Violence, F/M M/M F/F Other

…..

**Chapter One:**

_**A World of Pain, A World of Grey, A World Unknown ...And Yet...**_

Sunlight, streams of amber and hazy gold, pierced the thick canopy above his head. The forest was quiet, almost laughably peaceful, which only made circumstances all the more ironic.

Of course it was such a beautiful day, one so glorious he couldn't help but remember with a pang just how _much _he loved his village. When the air was fresh and warm, the leaves rustling overhead, the sky aflame under the setting sun as though the Will of Fire had reached up and painted the horizon.

Of course it was on a day such as this that death would finally catch him..

Lungs heaving and limbs like lead, Shisui could only push himself to _keep going_.

There were chakra signatures, muted but _there_, just behind him. And below. And above. There was blood in his eyes, slashes of pain and rivers over his skin, dripping from his chin.

He could barely see anymore. And, as one of the most renown Uchiha, that made everything all the more terrifying.

The Village was sacred. It held all the illusion of safety as a holy shrine, as though, although no-one would ever be naive enough to believe it true, no enemy could cross it's boundaries. Ninja, who killed every day of their lives and tore apart homes and villages and hearts alike, could return and _feel_ some semblance of safety. Konoha was a haven from the world, as though stepping through the gates symbolised that your mission-sanctioned deeds were behind you and now you could move on.

That was a lie. But, like all veneers of prettiness, it was a lovely little delusion.

He loved his village.

As a child, raised with a weapon in his grasp, the idea of ever being truly safe had seemed impossible. Everyone was so _strong _and the war had annihilated any childish dream of peace.

Except…

Konoha was _home_. Where Shinobi could sleep and eat and _flourish_ without having to watch...every...single...step. Watch, yes. But also _breathe_. Families only seemed to consolidate that ideal, that even trained assassins could build themselves a future. And, when Shisui had walked around the Compound as a child and, later, an adult...he dared to hope again.

Wasn't it funny that his belief in a haven would see him dead at its door?

With a silent huff, Shisui landed on the next branch, knees trembling upon impact and a hand jerked to brace himself before he could buckle.

_Dammit, damn it all-!_

A displacement of sir behind him and-

Shisui threw himself to the side, slipping off the branch with an inaudible grunt and landing ankle-deep in the undergrowth below. The kunai thudded harmlessly into the bark but Shisui was already off again.

Like liquid mercury, the teen wove through the projectiles bearing down on him, skidding through the bushes and twisting around trunks. There was no fighting back, besides snagging a few weapons and returning fire. He was, Shisui was honest enough with himself to admit, out of his depth. Blinded by blood and suffering from some kind of Aburame poison - that fizzed through his limbs like toothache and clouded his brain - he was backed into a corner.

Just...buying time.

Itachi was gone, an ANBU mission not due back for a few days yet. He couldn't go to his Clan, even though Shisui knew they'd immediately come to his aid; these nin were from Danzo and, therefore, Konoha...it would only make everything so much worse. _There wouldn't be a Coup… it would be a battlefield._

He just- he needed _time_ \- to recuperate, to keep his Mangekyou from Danzo.

There was so little time.

Shisui ducked under another branch, cursing when he realized he was on the edge of a clearing - perfect for an ambush, to be picked off without cover whilst his enemies skulked in the trees.

A tantō, insultingly similar to his own, bit into the tree beside his head, missing his jugular by a hairsbreadth. _Shit._

Without a choice - _they corralled me here! - _Shisui ducked out of the protection of the woods and they were immediately upon him.

A swarm of insects, like a putrid fog, swirled overhead but were temporarily held back by a hasty Fire Jutsu. The seals were scarcely completed before Shisui was ducking again, bending beneath the slash of a Katana and stabbing a kunai high into his attacker's thigh.

He'd kept that one back from earlier. Absently, dancing away from another slash at his heart, Shisui wondered if they carried antidotes to each others poisons.

A third operative materialised into the clearing, flashing through signs to spit a huge globe of discoloured water which collided with Shisui's second Grand Fireball with a hiss of smoke and steam.

_Time...I need an opening-_

Another signature flared beyond the trees and Shisui _reacted_.

Emerald exploded outwards, tearing across the open grass in gem-like flames and roaring up at the sky. Shisui was swathed in chakra, a warm cloak that tugged at his reserves and he had to lock his knees against the dizziness that followed. Suspended inside the great figure, however, the teen allowed it to support his weight.

_Susanoo_, taking the form of an ancient warrior, swung its blade down towards ROOT. The three leapt back, taking to the trees with a quickness that belied some kind of desperation. Shisui wasn't sure they could feel emotion like that, let alone in the midst of a battle, but they were still people.

Glowing in the light of the chakra construct, Shisui concentrated his Mangekyou towards the hidden operatives, feeling the thick black and scarlet pattern slowly turn…

A layer of Genjutsu, so fine it appeared like a whip of smoke to Shisui's gaze, and the illusion settled over the entire clearing.

A shadow of the teen staggered, _Susanoo _extinguished in an instant like a snubbed candle wick, and his illusion self made a dash towards the left, in the direction of the Naka River.

Shisui, releasing his grip on _Susanoo_ and sinking to his knees, waited with bated breath as the hidden nin left in pursuit of his illusion. When their presences had faded away into the distance and followed his Genjutsu downstream, Shisui let out a low exhale. His mouth tasted like fresh blood, although if it was from his injuries or his frantic pulse, he couldn't say.

His heart was racing, thrumming in his chest and pounding blood in his ears. Shaking fingers, too nimble after all these years to be clumsy despite his numbness, burrowed into his pocket for an emergency capsule. Shisui swallowed it dry, forcing it down his sore throat as wary eyes flickered around the now-empty meadow.

It wouldn't give him much but he'd last a little longer this way.

His canteen was almost empty, scuffed and dented from where it was strapped to protect his lower spine, but Shisui uncapped it anyway. The water was warm, washing the blood from his lips around his mouth until all he could taste was iron.

Slow clapping pierced the stillness of the clearing.

Shisui was moving before the noise had fully registered, body groaning with protest and Mangekyou furiously spinning.

_I need to get this poison out _now _if that's another operative or they're coming back-_

"Hey, don't be so hasty~"

An orange mask, swirled like a sweet, striped like a tiger and surrounded by a messy mop of dark hair appeared. Despite the novelty of its design, Shisui could _feel _the malice radiating from the figure leaning casually against a tree opposite.

They-they hadn't _been there_ a second ago! Shisui wasn't named after the Shunshin for nothing and he _knew _that technique better than anyone else. _How...how did they simply materialise without a technique like that, even the most basic would register on my senses_…

Shisui was the best of his Clan, whispered to be secondly only in speed as the Yondaime. He trumped Itachi in only years, quickness and experience, but it was enough.

Shaking off his shock, Shisui fingered a kunai as he slid into a ready crouch. "Who are you?"

The orange mask quirked, arms crossed so casually that Shisui felt rankled. A foreign nin, so blasè about the potential threat he posed. Shisui wasn't an arrogant asshole but he knew his worth. His Bingo Book entry had hammered that home long ago.

"That was a nice Genjutsu."

Their voice was deep, masculine but somehow familiar, and Shisui didn't recognise his chakra but there was something-

Red eyes narrowed. "You never answered me; who are you?"

A long pause and Shisui risked pulling out a basic anti-venom syringe from his medi-pouch, flipping the safety latch and stabbing it into his thigh. It wouldn't cure the slow advance of the Aburame poison in his veins but...if he had to fight, well, it would help with the symptoms. For a while.

"You can call me Tobi."

'_Can call'_, Shisui's eyes sharpened, pulling out the emergency pen and discarding it. _So not his actual name…_ "Are you from Konoha?"

He knew he wasn't, unless he was another from ROOT. But the mask was wrong, as was his entire presence, so Shisui was betting he was a foreign nin, come to check out the commotion from all the chakra thrown around.

"Judging from your eyes and that pretty hitai-ate, I'd say you were." _Another non-answer._ Shisui was really losing patience with this guy. Danzo could arrive at any minute, he didn't have time to waste like this if the stranger was just going to play with him.

His leg shifted minutely, skidding on rain-dampened soil, but 'Tobi' didn't so much as twitch.

"You are familiar with the Uchiha?" It was a silly question in these parts but Shisui had blood smeared over his face, Danzo's clawed fingers having tore through a brow and the delicate skin around his precious eyes when he'd tried to gouge out his Dojutsu. Shisui was, understandably, wary.

'Tobi' chuckled, deep and rumbling in his chest and Shisui mentally re-evaluated his suspected age. "You could say that."

Shisui stared, Sharingan boring into the dark hole concealing his eyes in shadow and then-

Red flared to life, almost glowing as it shifted from tomoe to Mangekyou and Shisui _paled_. There was sweat trickling down his temple and his lungs felt as though they were being crushed in an iron grip.

"You-"

"The Uchiha are so _busy_, nowadays, don't you agree?"

Swallowing hard, Shisui really didn't think he was talking about the small increase in Uchiha newborns in the past year.

"I wouldn't know," the teen refuted, Sharingan locked and waiting.

The stranger finally straightened, stretching his limbs with an ease that picked at Shisui's nerves. _This...isn't good._

"Oh, I think you know more than most," Shisui could almost hear the smile in his voice. It didn't sound like a very nice one. "Why else would Shimura Danzo be after your head?...or, rather, your _eyes?_"

Dread weighed like an avalanche on his shoulders, yanking his heart into his stomach and Shisui almost staggered with the realisation that he had, quite literally, leapt from the frying pan into the fire. _Shit._

"What do you want?"

The- the other _Uchiha _cocked his head, stepping casually into the meadow and meandering closer with hands in pockets. Shisui, still grasping a kunai, shifted to match him.

"How about a deal?"

_Or else...what? He'll kill me? _

"Go on."

'Tobi' continued walking, slowly treading a circle around the younger ninja in an eerie imitation of a beast and it's prey. Considering his current circumstances, Shisui didn't much like that comparison.

"The Uchiha have plans but," the masked nin freed a hand from his pocket to half-heartedly gesture towards Shisui's taunt figure. "It seems Konoha isn't going to deal with it peacefully. Say I were to..._lend_...my assistance?"

'_Deal with it peacefully?' Hokage-sama would never-_

But, hadn't Danzo shown that they might?

_Sandaime-sama has always been a merciful leader. He wouldn't respond so viciously against a Founding Clan, let alone one filled with so many innocents. And...weren't ROOT supposedly disbanded under the Yondaime? I...I have to believe that they wouldn't._

"Why?"

The orange masked tipped again, puppyish and mocking. "'Why' what, Shisui-kun?"

The Jōnin tightened his grip on the kunai held subtly behind his thigh at the realisation that this stranger knew exactly who he was whilst Shisui was still scrambling in the dark. "Why would you help?"

"I have my own reasons."

_Another diverted response_, Shisui mentally frowned.

"The Hokage-"

"Ah, I see," 'Tobi' finally stopped, arms limp as he turned towards the village. "You still have faith they will not betray you."

Yes, yes, he had faith. Because what was the difference between enemies and allies if there wasn't a home to protect, an ideal to defend? Nothing, and Shisui was through with having nothing to hold onto. At least, this way, maybe Itachi and his family could have such peace.

'Tobi' continued stepping closer, the clearing slowly darkening as the sun dipped behind the mountains and the sky flushed plum-purple. The creeping shadows only made their Sharingan all the more evident. "I suppose you're the wrong one then." Shisui shifted again, his free hand twitching to draw his blade at the dismissal. "Maybe the Heir will be more _compelling-"_

_Itachi._

And Shisui _snapped_.

His tantō flashed silver as he pulled it from its sheath, slashing through the air only for 'Tobi' to easily take the hit-

Which passed straight through him.

His Mangekyou swirled and Shisui scarcely had time to draw a shocked breath before they were meeting again.

'Tobi' was as merciless as he was cruel, kicking at Shisui's previous injuries with an unerring accuracy that suggested he'd watched the entire damned debacle with ROOT. Shisui's speed was only just enough to spare him an utter beat-down, curling around blows and redirecting limbs so quickly he couldn't even think his actions through, simply _do._

When 'Tobi' almost managed to get a hand around his throat, Shisui flickered away for even a second's respite.

His fingers blurred through seals as Tobi blinked out of existence, breathing a scorching wreath of flame around his crouched figure. _That should buy me a second to-_

An arm, clothed in dark fabric and untouched by the inferno, seemed to melt through the roaring flames and moved to strike before Tobi had even fully emerged.

_This technique! _Shisui ducked a high kick and aimed a punch that passed straight through. _It must be his Mangekyou!_

The 19-year-old could barely keep up, only his speed and excellent instincts allowing him to avoid taking any serious damage. Tobi was relentless, his attacks flowing and resolute. He wasn't graceful, but he was obviously extremely well trained. However, just from watching his various attacks, Shisui could see something..._off_.

His right side was stiffer, slower to react. It was subtle but, with his eyes focused, Shisui found it impossible to miss. His opponent landed out of sync, almost _clumsy_, when Shisui released his _Susanoo _again in a desperate bid for space.

"Don't go near my cousin-" Shisui panted, suspended in swathes of emerald chakra as the stranger watched, his breathing barely even elevated.

He waited for the other's own _Susanoo_ to appear.

But...it didn't.

_Why? _Shisui wrestled with his confusion as he directed the green entity to attack. _Susanoo _slammed it's blade into the earth, the ground exploding upwards but Tobi merely faded through it. _Why hasn't he? Does he not need it?_

Scarlet met his searching gaze, glowing from the single hole in his mask. _Single_-

Shisui jolted, _Susanoo _protecting him as Tobi spat a ball of fire - _was that Grand Fireball?!_

_He only has one eye._ _Did that mean...he doesn't _have _a Susanoo?_

Night had fallen completely by now, the trees painted in garish green light from Shisui's chakra construct and casting long shadows into the forest. The earth was scorched, the clearing all but decimated and, as Tobi attempted to merge through Shisui's cloak of pure chakra, the Jōnin desperately focused even more.

And _Susanoo grew, _glowing with light and bathing the land jade.

However, the cloak may have become stronger, at the cost of draining Shisui's reserves even faster, but Tobi was not to be stopped. Desperate, _Susanoo _batted it's great, scaled wings and Shisui took to the skies.

Even as far away as they were from the Village centre, Shisui heard the alarm go up. He most definitely didn't miss the signatures that started racing towards their fight. _ANBU._

Kami, Shisui could only pray it was his own squad; Genma was a poisons expert and Shisui, legs numb and ears ringing, could only pray to whatever god was listening that he'd get to a healer in time.

"It seems we're out of time." Tobi's deep voice cut through the crackle of _Susanoo_, the dark figure leaping into the air to join the Jōnin.

But Shisui couldn't let him leave. The thought was unacceptable, that such a threat to Itachi, to them _all, _would be allowed to slip through his fingers. Or phase.

Desperate, Shisui stabbed his kunai through Tobi's stomach just as he grabbed at the black hair above the mask with his other hand.

His grip _held._

_He can only concentrate on one area at a time! _

The realisation quickened his breath, which was already wheezing as the Jōnin clumsy deflected the worst of his blows. In such close quarters and distracted, Shisui could only just manage to make the hits more _manageable _when they landed. When, not if. A punch aimed at his throat clipped the curve of his clavicle, a kick to his groin dragging down the side of his thigh.

He was beaten and aching but Shisui kept his tantō in the fuckers torso, stabbing over and over, and kept a grip on his hair.

A prickle of awareness and Shisui could have sobbed with relief when his Captain's signature registered just beyond the clearing.

Until Tobi started to dissolve above him.

"No!" Shisui roared, lashing out desperately with arms and legs and everything he possessed, stabbing his blades into nothing and losing his grasp on the short hair between his fingers. "Oh no, you fucking _don't-"_

Inu-senpai burst into the field, arms flashing blue and white and cracking the air with raw lightning, the screams of tortured birds.

Just as Shisui, snarling and helpless, threw out his Mangekyou with all the willpower he possessed.

A single red eye met his, shadowed in the stranger's mask, but it was enough.

The Jōnin's fingers clamped onto Tobi's throat. _Do not leave Konoha. You cannot leave. You cannot flee-_

Tobi faded into nothing.

And took Shisui with him.

All noise faded, a buzz of nothingness that in no way resembled slumber or unconsciousness. It was devoid of sound, a vacuum of reality and Shisui's ears _rang _from the silence.

He glimpsed at a wasteland of concrete, grey bricks and a black sky, before there was a hand on his throat and no air to be had.

Tobi's grip was hard and merciless, squeezing hard and pushing Shisui's neck into the ground like he wanted to tear through and spew his blood _everywhere_.

Black dots danced before his eyes, legs twitching and Shisui knew he was _fucked._ Tobi had the upper hand here, intangible and stronger and in his own territory and Shisui was going to die.

He was going to die and Tobi-

Tobi was going to go _back_.

Scrambling fingers, that gripped at anything and everything and fought for survival, curled into another endless fist.

Both hands and most of his body weight focused on strangling the younger man, the mysterious Uchiha didn't see that fist coming until, a blur in the dim space, it cracked against his temple. The blow, compared to Shisui's earlier forms, was weak but, against the fragile bone just visible at the edge of the orange mask, it was enough. It was _enough_.

Tobi was knocked half an inch to the side, head reeling as his vision no doubt rang, and Shisui wasted no time.

His lungs screamed for air but his hands grasped a kunai and stabbed, vicious and hard, against the orange mask above him.

The blade sank straight through, harmless and throwing him off balance.

"Not so easy!" The older man chortled, the humor in his voice only thinly veiling the frustration there. "Don't be so rude, Shisui-kun-"

A single red eye dropped back to his, curved slightly with amusement, but Shisui was already lashing out.

His chakra was down and, in all his years as a Shinobi, he'd never been so close to death. Under the claws of the tiger...the ironic imagery, the striped orange mask, was _not _lost on him.

But he wasn't going down like this. Not without making sure this 'Tobi' was dead too.

Sluggishly at first and then picking up speed, Shisui's Mangekyou bloomed into existence and spun in a blur of crimson and fathomless black. With the technique stretched out to tether onto reality, Shisui could feel the strange place he'd been taken to. It was...vacant.

Hollow.

Shisui had been in caves before, deep and furrowing burrows that made his Captain twitch and had their team's chakra quivering with paranoia.

Here, it felt like they were encased in a fishbowl, a paper lantern...like a bubble of reality-

-_a bubble of reality-_

It was desperate and incomprehensible but, if he was going to die, so would Tobi.

Hands clamped down on his abused trachea with renewed viciousness, all of Tobi's supposed good humor falling away in concentration at the task at literal hand. The focus, and therefore distraction, was all that Shisui needed.

So, instead of crafting a new reality within Tobi's mind, Shisui's Mangekyou exploded chakra outwards in a silent roar of destruction.

And _tore it._

Barely a minute had passed since Tobi had phased them out and Shisui had realised that, yes, today he would die. That this was it.

The grey world around them _writhed_, fracturing like glass and tearing like paper and dissolving like acid. The floor rumbled beneath Shisui's spine, falling and pitching as though a great earthquake was breaking the foundations of this little universe.

The grip on his throat heaved him up, gloved nails biting into the tender flesh. "What the _fuck _did you do?!"

Shisui's head was foggy, distant as a smokey silhouette, but he managed to salvage a final, crooked smile. _Not laughing now? _He wanted to snicker but the abuse of his neck made any answer impossible.

The space around them constricted, flickering like an aftershock or the blur of the horizon mid-Shunshin.

And, speaking of…

Shisui flexed the last of his reserves, barely enough for a handful of jutsu, and smiled.

His namesake, his beloved Shunshin, shivered around him just as Tobi, with a similar idea, started to dissolve into nothing and any sense of triumph died swiftly.

"No!" Shisui croaked, pathetic and choking. The older man's thighs had already disappeared as the Jōnin scrambled up. No, no, no- it couldn't end like this! He'd tried so fucking hard to trap the bastard and he didn't give a shit, not anymore, if he lived to revel in his victory. But everyone depended on this stranger dying.

Itachi, Sasuke...for the peace of Konoha.

"You fucker-"

And, impossibly, they both disappeared again.

The vacuum of sound, of reality, hadn't even faded before Shisui felt Tobi fist a hand in his shirt and wrap an arm around his neck. The hold was strong and insistent and Shisui was barely conscious. It was a miracle he'd lived this long. The bones of his neck creaked in protest, the muscle against his cheek clenching in preparation to _snap._

For the first time that night, Shisui's kunai sank into flesh.

The bite of the blade was enough, tearing through the taunt length of his attacker's ribs and only stopping when Shisui felt it scrape bone.

They hadn't fully formed back into reality when Shisui shoved himself free.

His back slammed into bark, punching the air from his lungs as soundly as a Warhammer would have. His eyes swam from the sudden lash of pain, burning his throat like acid and Shisui dropped limp.

There was no noise, dampened soil pressed to his cheek and barely conscious.

The world was hushed, with only the creak of the lofty tree boughs and rustle of a million leaves to disrupt the stillness.

His body screamed with pain, shutting down either in death or in exhaustion, Shisui didn't even know.

But he didn't sense Tobi. In fact, he couldn't sense _anyone_.

And, as the world slipped away, Shisui hoped the bastard was dead.

…..

The blackness did not hold him long.

Shisui came to with a whining groan, limbs heavy with exhaustion and every breath making him tremble with agony.

He was still face down in the grass, unmoved from his original fall. No-one had found him or, if they had, they hadn't even touched his kit. Shisui, for himself, was far too wounded to have shifted in his sleep. The body recognised its own condition.

If Shisui had the strength to stand, it would be a feat.

His chakra reserves, previously empty, were in slightly better condition. The rest had obviously helped but, without healing and nourishment, Shisui's inevitable death was just being drawn out here.

Throat far too damaged to groan, Shisui could only stretch his lips, cracked and bleeding anew, in a silent scream when he rolled onto his side.

Adrenaline and unchained animal terror, so it seemed, had been his saviour last (?) night. His left arm was so heavily bruised, his favourite to block with tantō in his right, it might as well have been broken. His skin, beneath his greaves, was mottled purple and red, the bruises swollen and sore to the touch. They'd need a salve for sure. His torso, when, with creaking bones and bloodied knuckles, the Jōnin lifted the hem of his ruined shirt to investigate, was just as discoloured.

Filthy, scratched fingers fumbled across the tender flesh for any sign of internal bleeding and Shisui, eyes still closed against the leaf-filtered light and head rested back, breathed in relief.

He was singed and torn and beaten but.

He wasn't broken and he was _alive_.

It must've been an hour before the Uchiha felt able to peel back swollen lids and squint at the sky above him. The light had grown, the yellow cast suggesting the closing in of dawn, but it was warm enough that Shisu didn't feel chilled.

Propped against the very tree he'd collided with, Shisui laid out his remaining supplies. He had to be careful, rationing out as much as possible with enough to keep him alive. Until he could get back to Konoha.

Maybe he'd get close before sending a crow to Kakashi-senpai or Itachi.

But he had to be cautious. Tobi...Danzo...there were too many wild cards for him to be careless. Too much depended on his return, to warn and protect.

He had four kunai and six shuriken, his tantō, two pills, a roll of bandages, a small medics kit (he'd never go without one after the first time he was stuck up shit creek without the bare minimals), and an emergency injection of adrenaline.

He'd been lightly equipped for a simple training run in the woods. He'd practice his mid-Shunshin throws, recited a few Katas on the edge of the waterfall...generally just had a bit of me-time, cathartic exercise to ease the tensions running high.

Hindsight was 20/20.

And it had all gone to utter _shit._

_No moping, Uchiha. _Shisui reminded himself, lips pressed together as he reached his thigh holster. _This is a mission. Act like it._

Water was the first crucial marker. Shisui wasn't just dirty but he was caked with blood and the stench of fear, pain and general _prey_. He was easy pickings for any predator, human and beast alike.

Not to mention that he was dehydrated and his wounds needed cleaning before they became infected.

Eyes fluttering shut, Shisui felt for what little chakra has returned in him and grimaced at the shallow flicker.

It was barely enough but, desperate times called for desperate measures, and the last of Shisui's chakra trickled down his limbs. It was a trick pioneered by Senju Tsunade, the Slug Princess. Whilst the blonde Sannin used the effect to be a devastating force on both the battlefield and the operating table, Shisui had picked this little trick up from Mikoto-sama herself. His Clan's Matriarch had been a kenjutsu specialist before marriage and, with fine accuracy, she'd extent a ribbon of chakra into her wielded blade.

Shisui hadn't progressed as far as her but he knew enough for _this._

As his chakra, such a small amount, filtered into his weakened limbs, the energy surge temporarily deadened the pain.

Knowing he was literally running on borrowed time, Shisui clambered awkwardly to his feet and, gazing between the deciduous trees that rose around him, followed the natural slope of the land. The ground was damp, the layer of pine needles and decomposing leaves sticking wetly to his sandals. It had obviously rained here recently. But, from the dryness of Shisui's own clothes, it couldn't have been whilst he was 'sleeping'. It hadn't rained around Konoha or Fire in weeks, the height of summer as humid as it was hot. But no rain, just a disgusting, uncomfortable, inherent stickiness.

Shisui risked a deeper breath, staggering through the undergrowth-

He faltered.

This forest wasn't right.

Dark eyes flickered up and around and realisation had him swallowing harshly.

These trees...weren't right.

Senju Hashirama had surrounded Konoha with great, mammoth trees formed from his kekkei genkai. The forests were _saturated _with his sunshine-bright chakra, even decades and decades afterwards.

These… were not those trees.

_I must've been cast out of 'Tobi's technique even further from what I'd thought. I could, theoretically, be anywhere…_

It didn't matter in the long run. Smaller goals first. Worrying about his possible location, and how the fuck he was going to get back. Water. Find water… he could do that.

Following the natural curves of the forest, relatively easy even just growing up in Konoha, Shisui kept his eyes peeled for both signs of nearby water and Tobi. Ears straining for an approach and the rush of water.

After far longer than his screaming muscles would have liked, Shisui stumbled (depressingly literally) upon a free flowing river. It wasn't ideal in his condition for a bathe, the rapids far too swift without chakra, but a seemingly abandoned otter dam had pushed the flow and bloated the riverbed into marshy shallows running along the edges. The water wasn't the fresh and cool liquid of the main moving body but Shisui really couldn't care less at this point.

He peeled off his ragged clothes, unwound his bandage wraps, and slowly crept into the water.

A whimper tore from his ruined throat, open wounds aching to the bone in the biting cold water. Pale hands, bruised purple and smeared with blood, cupped water and rinsed filthy curls, gently scrubbing down his limbs and cleaning out his various cuts and scrapes.

He dragged himself from the water before his core body temperature could drop too drastically and proceeded to dump his clothes into the water as well. It was a risk, to soak his clothes, but the sun was growing stronger and stronger and he wouldn't take long to dry off in these conditions.

The bandages that had smoothed down the edges of his trouser cuffs, circled his thighs, bound his wrists, were to be repurposed to bind his creaking ribs and support his knuckles and wrists like a taijutsu expert. After they had dried out, of course.

His shirt was an utter loss, stretched from being heaved and thrown about in Tobi's grip, slashed from knives, singed by fire. But a layer was a layer, so Shisui didn't even hesitate in redonning it.

He did however take a kunai to the high, Uchiha-style collar and the Clan symbol between his shoulder blades. With his curls and laughter lines, Shisui could pass as a generic, if battered, unknown. He couldn't risk a Clan association this deep in unknown woods and, if he didn't find somewhere soon to, apologetically no doubt, raid for healing supplies… he'd be stuck travelling civilian for a while. It might throw Tobi off his trail anyway.

That's if the bastard was even still alive.

If he hadn't simply transported himself to Itachi-

_No._

No, he couldn't go down that route. He had to-to have _faith. _Faith in something, someone, or he was a corpse walking.

Speaking of corpses-

A fish darted through the water, lingering around the fractured beaver dam, no doubt seeking brief shelter from the harsh current.

Shisui's usual technique here was to strike fast, whether with an aerial weapon or his bare hands. Right now though? He would probably wrench something.

He sat utterly still.

And-

It was an undignified, mad scrabble. His thighs came together, aching hands slipping over scales until the both of them flopped to the shore, a very unhappy fish wiggling and gasping in Shisui's grasp.

God, he hadn't been this ungainly since he was in single digits.

But both man and fish were ashore, wet and unhappy, and it was simple for Shisui to slip his thumbs between the gills and snap its spine.

Gutting and sticking it on a stick, a quick fire jutsu that barely licked at his pitiful chakra stores that boiled the fish from the inside out, and Shisui heaved himself away from the water into the nearest patch of sunshine, and promptly collapsed back.

His clothes, laid out on the grass beside him, quickly dried in the morning light as Shisui swallowed down the pitiful meal.

It was hard to focus, recuperate, knowing time was ticking.

Itachi was still on his ANBU mission, meaning he had first dibs of the crows, and with days still left until he was due back, Shisui couldn't justify summoning their tracker Fujiko-san away from his cousin's side.

Things were really fucked up on his end but if he summoned her at a crucial point in Itachi's mission and did damage or, even worse, saw his cousin killed?

He would wait a little longer, in the hope that, by then, Itachi would be travelling back to the village.

Casting aside the fish bones, Shisui wrapped himself up in the clean(ish) bandages before tugging on slightly damp trousers and easing his way, mindful of his beaten body, through his shirt sleeves. With the torn collar of his top, Shisui tied his curls back from his forehead.

His hitai-ate was moved to his bicep, under the sleeve. Precious, not to be discarded, but a potential liability.

In ANBU missions that went to hell, they were taught to destroy all village association to minimise political backlash. Shisui knew the procedure. It wasn't bad enough for him to melt his metal leaf plate, but he could do it… if he had to.

The sun was rising towards noon when Shisui pried himself off of the forest floor. For a ninja in a pinch, sleep (no matter how unwitting) and food could do wonders for reserves. No, Shisui had no illusions about his physical state for travel, let alone a fight. But, at least now, his chakra slowly seeping back like embers burned low but easing their way into flame again, he was able to hold an edge.

Shisui wanted to hurry back, take to the trees and Shunshin his way back to Konoha faster than he'd ever pushed himself before.

But Shisui wasn't a total idiot.

He needed rest, not just for his energy and chakra, but for the ache of his bones and the pulse-thrum of pain thundering behind his eyes.

He wandered away from the water, which would surely see traffic of region-native animals, and found a tree with both a good vantage point of the surrounding area and a bough sturdy enough to support Shisui's not-inconsiderable build. He had the Uchiha height but, instead of slighter shoulders, he was also broad. He certainly surprised people at first glance, the contrast of size and his speed.

Shisui glanced upwards again, decided upon an hour's power nap to see him through an afternoon's chakra-enabled travel until nightfall, and settled himself in the carefully chosen spot.

His eyes closed and, like all professional shinobi who knew to train themselves to take whatever rest they could, he fell asleep immediately.

…...

Shisui's eyes flew open when he sensed a concentration of chakra, moving in tandem, in his rough direction.

_The local village? ROOT?_

Immediately, Shisui was arming himself, all supplies firmly tied down and his tantō poised. His reserves were already back to half - wherever he was, the ambient energy was revitalising. It was like fresh, mineral-rich, mountain spring water compared to an earth-dug well.

He didn't remember anywhere with such latent, _inherent, _chakra. Shisui himself wasn't a great sensor, something self taught and patchwork picked up from ANBU, but _here_… his senses seemed to yawn wide.

His reserves were already back to half, which felt more than a little crazy.

He couldn't tell who the-the crowd, it seemed, were. He didn't know how many there were either. Only that they were skimming far too close to him for comfort.

Shisui, every foot placement careful, one hand on the sheath of his blade, raced through the trees like a ghost.

_They've ...started fighting?_

Shisui crept closer, senses straining for a clue. Was it some sort of clash? A mission gone sour?

He carefully Shunshined closer.

It was in the middle of a leap that Tobi found him.

Shisui was renowned for his use of the Body Flicker, nothing could touch him once he'd gotten going. So fast he was able to leave after images by impressing his chakra out in a mild not-genjutsu with every stutter.

He'd never, ever been caught before.

The hand around his neck, perfectly timed, set a new precedent.

"_What have you done_?!"

Shisui found himself slammed against the nearest tree, barely avoiding another attempt at inflicting a nasty concussion, and stared up at that _cursed _orange mask. But-

"_You_ took us here," he spat back, uncharacteristically poisonous. "With your Mangekyou. _Uchiha_." The name was twisted, rueful and sarcastic and bitter. His fellow Clansman was a monster. His future murderer… he'd just have to make sure that was mutual. "Who are you?" Shisui tried again, kicking out sharply only for the blow to fall through nothing.

Tobi leaned back slightly and chuckled. Like in the clearing, his voice seemed to drop another pitch every time he spoke. "You tried to use your own little Mangekyou, didn't you, Shisui-kun?"

Shisui didn't reply, choosing instead to attack with an uppercut to the gut and to wrench Tobi's ankle out from under him. Just as the teen had hoped, Tobi chose to phase the punch - aimed to instigated internal bruising - so ankles snagged and the duo pitched off balance.

Tobi phased through the branch that Shisui smacked into with a clack of his teeth.

_Fuck all his enemies but _fuck _this bastard in particular-_

Tobi wasted no time, as Shisui was beginning to become acclimated to. He sunk through the trunk behind the teen, throwing out a ruthless procession of punches at the base of Shisui's spine and the back of his knees. Mercy of mercies, Shisui endured the first three but was able to drop his weight and slip around the girth of the branch, knees braced. He jabbed at the older man's exposed toes.

"Coupled with my own and your little Shunshin…" Tobi continued to muse, uninterrupted, before quirking his head. He resembled more a predator at the jugular of its prey than a child at play. "What does it do?"

Shisui palmed a kunai and slashed at his knees.

"Ah, ah, ah!" Tobi hopped out of reach, kicking at Shisui's knees, who dropped to the ground in time for Tobi to join him. Duck, duck, spin- a hand, reaching for his hair, caught at his bandana and ripped it off to drop carelessly. His idle posturing was slow enough that Shisui was able to dead-kick the nerves of Tobi's dominant thigh. Simultaneously swiping his kunai blade towards the liver, the kick connected. Hopefully that would deaden-

A haymaker knocked the wind from his sails with an explosive gasp and, at he staggered back, Shisui angled his foot, snagging around Tobi's knee to tip-

Tobi disappeared, leaving Shisui to painfully catch himself in a crouch that had his beaten and bloody body scream in protest.

"What _do_ those eyes do, Shisui-kun?"

"Fuck you," he bit out, and grasped the hilt of his tantō.

The moment of distraction cost him and Tobi, apparently done with demanding answers Shisui had no intention of providing, decided that another demonstration was in order.

He hadn't meant to play along, to give the mysterious Uchiha what he wanted, but Tobi had grabbed him, brutally yanking him into the microdemension and-

It was on the verge of collapse, the walls tearing with scars that hurt the eyes to behold, thrumming with the abyss.

It was what nothingness looked like, a void of no creation. Like deep space, beyond the stars that their science books had briefly touched on (taught for navigation and direction, naturally).

Something small and terrified screamed inside Shisui's mind, the corner that was still base animal and wanted to _live live live._

He had to get out of here, it was going to combust any fucking moment and it was a miracle they'd been able to return-

Tobi had thrown him, one handed, across the space upon their return and, as Shisui scrambled back to his feet, he noticed that his discarded weapons were still here.

He managed to grab two more kunai and his second tantō before Tobi snapped another rib with a sharp kick.

"Do it again-"

The tears in the dimension gaped obscenely, like infected wounds that wept _nothingness_.

Tobi came for him again and Shisui automatically flashed away.

But there was a hand on his arm, nails biting deep, and another closing around his throat-

Mind filled with his near strangulation, the desperate desire to be free and go _home_, Shisui lashed out.

Tobi got what he wanted.

Shisui's eyes spun and matured, body thrumming with an Shunshin and the masked man yanked them through again.

As soon as his head stopped splitting open, Shisui knew where he was.

The scent, the air itself as he heaved in a desperate breath and clawed his way free.

Two failed activations - or, rather, interrupted - of his Mangekyou and he felt like his eyes were bleeding all over again.

He staggered away, falling to his knees and heaving up what little water remained in his stomach. Tobi, unmoved upon arrival, simply stood by dispassionately and watched on.

They'd been there four seconds when the screaming registered.

The night was dark, a dizzying contrast to the daybreak haze of the forest they'd left behind, and blue enough that sunset must've not been long ago. The light was dim but, Shisui's Sharingan glowing openly and Tobi's visible through his single eyehole, it was more than enough to make out the gentle slope of the roofs, the wall and the vacant streets.

It was the Uchiha compound. He was _home._

But Tobi was with him and he wanted Itachi, for something no doubt nefarious and-

Shisui didn't know how long they'd been gone. To fight at night, wake at dawn, only to jump between afternoon and daybreak… clearly the transportation anomalies were not as instantaneous as they felt. Was Itachi back yet? Had Danzo acted in his disappearance or had, as his foolishly hoped in his heart, the Hokage acted.

When the screams, low and broken, reached his ears, Shisui _moved._

That was Rikari-san, the mother who lived across from the main house, who worked with the Nara to make medicin-

He leapt over the nearest roof, sandals silent as they skidded on the tiles and pushed him onto the next property. Tobi was following, half a step behind him, but Shisui didn't have the time to deal with him.

Because the air was thick with death and blood and fear and-

There were bodies in the street, blood pooling black as ink, and Shisui knew instinctively that, despite their lingering warmth, they were dead. Beyond saving and his throat was so tight, it was like being strangled all over again.

He cast out his senses, ears straining and chakra reaching out with a trembling desperation, but...the only signatures left were near the main house.

No...no…

_Inside _the main house.

His breath stuttered.

Shisui Flickered.

_Itachi- please, not his cousins...not after everything-_

Tobi grabbed his arms, pulling him back into iron-like restraints, and Shisui howled.

"What is wrong with you?!" He thrashed in the older man's grip, "Is this what you meant?! Why did you take me here if-"

"I didn't," the masked man interrupted, voice steady despite how they were scuffling on the rooftops. "It was you."

_What-!_

"Amazing, isn't it?" Tobi mused, easily avoiding a series of kicks to his weak side. "I gather your Mangekyou can somehow distort reality, hmm? More than a usual Sharingan."

Shisui didn't reply, heart thundering, and only moved to make another leap for the main house, fairing his chakra in a desperate ANBU code for URGENT and praying that this wasn't the work of his beloved Konoha.

But Tobi was in front of him again, equal parts frustratingly capable of containing him and incapable of keeping Shisui from slipping away at the last second. "You've no doubt noted I'm down an eye, Shisui-kun." His deep voice found some of it's old playfulness, even if the childish shift in pitch failed to make a reappearance.

"Imagine if I could combine our gifts without you? How..._fun_."

Shisui's mind whirled.

There was no doubt that Tobi was talking about stealing his eyes. He had a vacant eye socket after all. But...to combine abilities?

Shisui's Mangekyou latched onto reality and knitted an unshakeable impression, a restructuring of perspective. Reality wasn't remade but, using the user and victims, it could make it...side step, so to speak.

The Shunshin, when used with particular finesse by Shisui especially, allowed for extremely high speed chakra travel.

Tobi had a...pocket dimension. Shisui could only guess that this phasing ability was actually just him dipping between his 'pocket' and the real world, although he didn't have a clue how he could only phase certain parts of himself.

Shisui thought about the forest he didn't recognise despite over a decade as a shinobi who travelled all across the Elemental Nations, the richness of chakra, the pitched fight in the distance.

The shift between days and nights in the course of a few moments.

Itachi's signature, quivering but alive, a few streets over.

_Dimension hopping and the ability to remake reality- the tears in the pocket- my Shunshin-_

"...Where are we?" Shisui croaked.

_It must be a dream, an alternate existence or something-_

Red flared again, glowing in the shadows of that eerie, single eye hole.

"Oh, Shisui-kun...the better question would be _when_?"

The world seemed to freeze, stop, and then start spinning backwards. He was underwater with no direction to the surface and no air.

His feet threatened to slip off the tiles, his chakra fluctuating out of his limp grasp, spluttering once, twice, before Shisui skidded.

As with most of their fight, it seemed fate favoured the younger Uchiha, who slid a foot before centring himself again. It was enough that Tobi, who'd wasted no time in reaching for his eye, merely scraped his temple.

Dropping into the street and avoiding looking directly at the- the _corpses_ of his Clan, some part of Shisui's mind that managed to maintain a scrap of humour noted that his eyes were popular. Mikoto-sama had once said they were pretty but Shisui didn't think she's meant people admired them in _this way_.

Thoughts of his 'aunt', regardless of their tenuous blood connection, were a knife of reality as the chakra signatures decreased again.

_Where were the fucking ANBU?!_

There should have been a patrol by now, a report by someone about something going on regardless. The chakra here was _shrieking _in agony. There was a Shinobi block of flats not far from here and they'd have definitely sensed goings on and at least reported it.

Unless.

Unless the village were behind this.

Shisui's ANBU team, with Kakashi-senpai and Genma-san and shy Tenzo-kun, danced into his mind's eye. Is that what he'd find, if be escaped Tobi long enough to reach the main house? His own team slaughtering his family, the clan he loved only slightly less than the village around them.

Shisui ran.

Tobi wasn't far behind, constantly appearing before him and beside him and forcing Shisui to scramble and duck and weave like a mouse in the gaze of a hawk but he was _moving_ and he was _alive_ and, at this rate, it was an achievement.

Shisui flared his chakra again, remembering how Kakashi had entered the clearing just as Tobi had first taken them.

Shisui wasn't a religious man. He respected the Two Sides of the Moon, as all Uchiha were expected to, but he depended on what he could see and touch than much else.

In a clan of Dojutsu Genjutsu users, reality was vital.

But, as he twisted away from Tobi and waited for some kind of sign, sidestepping his _family's_ cooling corpses with tears stinging his reopened wounds, Shisui prayed.

The chakra in the main house cut down to two.

And no-one was coming.

A hand at his throat, now-familiar fingers crushing into previously inflicted bruises, and Shisui's next move was instinct.

The world tore itself into nothingness, was remade within the same instant eternity, and those empty woods closed around them once more.

"Let me fucking go-" Shisui howled, half mad with grief.

He'd survived this long, desperately scrambling at the line between life and death, because he had to believe his sacrifice was going to be _worth something._

Family. Kami but his _family-_

Shisui was an orphan. The Clan members who had raised him - _it takes a village to raise a child _\- were all the more precious to him because he'd not been blessed with living parents, living close relatives, living siblings. His closest blood connection had died over half a decade ago.

...gone.

Fingers scratched his brows, the bridge of his nose, and Shisui was _exhausted._

_What was the point, why keep them...for all this suffering and anguish?_

What if-

Itachi was alone in the Compound with one other. By now, he was probably dead too.

Shisui was the Last Uchiha.

Shisui and… and this _bastard_.

No, no, Shisui couldn't let him _win. _He had approached with a plot, had _threatened his cousin_, and suddenly the Clan was _gone._

This man, insanely strong and boasting a proclivity for intangibility, could easily have sent shadow clones-

Shisui ducked, threw himself into the forest - _it_ _was the same one they'd just left, pitched fight still on going a kilometre away_ \- floor and slammed palms down to the earth.

The Summoning tattoo - Itachi's bright idea seeing as they shared the contract - that spanned his back, runic wings in the darkest black ink, writhed with chakra.

An explosion of nightmare-black feathers, a corvid's scream that rang the eardrums, and scaly talons clamped around his shoulders-

"Eiichi-" Shisui gasped, the ground tunnelling far below as the huge crow, easily the size of a cart horse, carried them high with a few beats of its great wings. "Is Itachi-"

"Discuss later. Save now."

"Excuse me~"

"Shit-!" Shisui yanked his legs up, Tobi's sweeping kunai missing by a hairsbreadth, and threw himself, still hanging from his summon's grasp, to swing around and up. Eiichi released him and the momentum carried him through to land heavily on the crow's back. "Faster-"

Hands clamped down on a great, batting wing, and the bone snapped with horrific ease.

Eiichi screamed, pitching from the air, and Shisui's Mangekyou burned. "No-!"

His heart seemed to slow. The air stilled around them, sound narrowing down to the immediate stimuli.

It wasn't the high speed comprehension of the Sharingan.

He drew his tantō with his right, a kunai with his left, and forced Eiichi back into the Summon Realm.

They started free falling but Shisui didn't care. He lunged both weapons simultaneously, the tantō swiping across Tobi's torso - and subsequently fading through harmlessly - whilst he buried the kunai to the hilt in Tobi's weaker shoulder.

Tobi forced Shisui beneath him, fists warping the jagged collar of his shirt until it slipped, taunt, over one pale shoulder and the seam bit into flesh. The tear in his robe collar tore, Shisui's grip forced to falter with the movement, and the older man's sleeve was ripped off.

White.

White skin, bloodness and moulded like..._clay_ and Shisui couldn't even waste a second to gape at the horrified realisation that this man wasn't completely human.

He did have time however to offer another prayer to whatever force, being or fate or whatever, had seen him through this far.

They smashed into the first tree, bark and trunk fracturing around them as Shisui, taking advantage of Tobi's engaged grip, scrambled at his stupid orange mask. His fingers slipped through.

They careened through a second tree, Shisui's spine screaming in protest at the abuse, and the light flickering through the blur-like leaves caught a glint of metal for an instant. The reminder, the inspiration, struck like a match.

Shisui grabbed the kunai in Tobi's shoulder and _wrenched it._

It was the first time Tobi had loosed a noise involuntarily.

The kunai slipped from the incorporeal flesh, lost to the woods, just as Shisui's desperate hands gained purchase and the mask followed his weapon into the space below.

A nightmare snarled at him.

Shisui's heart shattered, eyes wide in animal terror and incomprehensible tragedy. He couldn't believe it.

The hands once more migrating to his trachea begged otherwise.

"O-"

A punch, brutal, broke Shisui's collarbone with an audible _snap._

Shisui felt like vermin, flayed open and blood pooling and organs strewn and-

Oh, this day. This terrible day-

They broke from the tree line, colliding with the earth like a meteor and skidded a great furrow a hundred yards.

The battlefield - because evidently that's what it _was _\- they interrupted half-paused at their entrance but the two Uchiha paid them no mind.

A blaze of chakra, earthy and _bright_, like Tenzo-kun's but _more_, burned like the sun a brief distance away, head to head with what felt like a volcano of an aura. It itched not to pay attention to, like consciously ignoring the dragon across the hill, but Shisui had more pressing concerns.

His-his unmasked adversary was presently attempting to wrangle one of Shisui's tantō free. He had been unarmed this entire damned time, argh.

They rolled in the dirt, Sharingan spinning furiously, before, finally prying Shisui's fingers free of his sword, Tobi raised a leg - his weaker one, so hopefully Shisui's numbing kick had been even a little effective - and kicked Shisui clean across the field.

"You want a sword?!" Shisui howled, curling mid air to land on his feet, unsealing his second tantō, the one he'd stashed after picked it up in the pocket dimension. Mikoto-hime had commissioned those blades for him, had taught him kenjutsu, and this _traitor _had no right to touch them.

But if it was kenjutsu _Tobi _wanted, Shisui would give it to him.

His chakra pulsed, in sync with his heartbeat, and then Shisui _stuttered _from view.

His Body Flicker activated so quickly, fast as light, faster than the Sharingan, and a dozen Shisuis appeared across the field, all with tantō poised-

Tobi curved to the right, twisted with a slightly stilted flexibility, and Shisui was right there, all focus on that pale, weak, left side.

Frustratingly, the older merely vanished when Shisui blade attempted to bisect his spinal cord.

"You have a lot of _nerve,_" the teen hissed, jaw clenched against the traitorous upswell of emotion.

Tobi reemerged high to his right, sword curved for a downwards slash which, when Shisui automatically parried, he feigned into a reverse upstroke. "Oh, you're too k-"

Shisui coiled his chakra, lightning cracking down the blade which connected to Shisui's stolen tantō - at _last_ \- and conducted down Tobi's arm. "Don't speak from his face, you bitch!"

The next series of blows sank through the elder, who evidently deemed the current mid-battle chit chat more important than remaining corpreal enough to do damage. "Oh? Is there something wrong with it?"

The spiderweb of scars, twisting achingly familiar features, mocked him. The cruel curl to a mouth that had never known such an expression of malice in Shisui's carefully preserved memory.

"You're a lie."

A kick connected to his hip and Shisui skidded back a few feet.

Obito's face - _dead, you're dead, this is an incomparable cruelty - _transformed into the mask of a monster, teeth bared like a savage beast. Like he wanted to rip into Shisui's jugular for the audacity of those last words and the expression sent a thrill of true terror down the teen's spine.

This was hell, personally tailored.

"_Life is a lie, not me."_

For the first time, Shisui allowed himself to take in the rest of the field, dark haired warriors, dressed almost like samurai but moving without the strict regility, jutsus woven freely alongside weapons and -

_That...that was a...a Sharingan-_

And another-!

These-

These people were _Uchiha._

Shisui wheeled around quickly, Mangekyou flickering urgently, before his gaze refocused with careful precision on Obi-_Tobi_. The imposter was unbothered however, his expression clearly revelling in Shisui's unveiled anguish.

He didn't know these faces, not a single one. And after what they'd just witnessed…

"What is this?" Shisui's voice was hoarse from misuse and abuse but Tobi heard him clearly.

"Think harder, _Shisui-kun." _His arms opened to gesture around them. "This is all your doing anyway. Everything that has happened… is your fault."

Shisui's nostrils flared, temper sparking. "No."

Tobi bore his teeth in a mockery of a smile. "Yes."

Shisui stared around again and-

A pale face, at home in the Uchiha Clan, but-

The curve of his cheek, the flare of ebony hair either side of a small forehead, a slightly upturned nose, sharp eyes…

He'd seen that face, round with childhood and petulant in the school yard, just yesterday morning. The man was older, his hair spiked and just as untamed as always, his traditional Uchiha robe embroidered between the shoulders with the Clan Fan and-

Their bastardized combined Mangekyou travel had never been instantaneous, shown in the inconsistent sunlight hours, but to take so long?

Shisui had felt the signatures across the compound flicker and die like candles in the wind, and yet this field, this battleground, was _filled _with them.

And then his baby cousin's - _not a baby anymore, older than Shisui now - _adversary, a white haired water user - _probably Kiri - _triggered a seal matrix that looked terrifyingly similar to the Yondaime's Flying Thunder God. Shisui was Genma's ANBU teammate, had heard the older brunet speak in low, respectful tones about the Yondaime's abilities. It was always carefully out of range from Kakashi-senpai's keen hearing, the wounds still too soon and bleeding for their Captain who wasn't much older than Shisui himself. Shisui had heard enough about the technique.

Oh Kami, oh _fuck_-

The only thought Shisui had was _not Sasuke-chan, not Sasuke_-

He crossed the field as if he was a ghost, faster than comprehension, and then he was _there _ and there was no place for thoughts, no place for anything but instinct.

His hands came up, palms securely wrapped in both bandages and a layer of chakra.

His caught the blade between his palms, the tip frozen too inches from his chest, and Shisui had taken his eyes off of the imposter. Had unarmed himself for a man who hadn't seen him since he was scarcely seven.

But Sasuke was safe, sprawled uninjured on the ground beneath Shisui's legs.

And then Shisui's gaze settled on thin red tattoos, a face that was both alien and strangely familiar.

Senju Tobirama, cherry irises flared wide with cold, angry disbelief, stared down his blade at him.


	2. Blood and Water

**Shisui always could think on his feet but his heart was never nearly so smart.**

…

A/N- I've been writing these past few days pretty obsessively because its been so long since I was this invested in Naruto or...really... any fic haha so I'm riding this for as long as possible. However, unlike my other works, I've actually...planned this one. There's a checklist to stop me going AWOL and losing my way/getting myself into something I'll regret. Hopefully having that structure will see me through to the end of this fic intact haha. Anyway, thank you for your support and lovely reviews. Hope you enjoy the chapter 3

_Again, shout out of appreciation to Katlou303 for putting up with me XD_

Warnings: Graphic Depictions of Violence, Insinuations of Rape/Non-Con

F/M M/M F/F Other

…..

**Chapter Two:**

_**Blood and Water**_

_Senju Tobirama, cherry irises flared wide with cold, angry disbelief, stared down his blade at him._

Shisui froze, the realisation like a crash of ice water cascading over his head.

_He'd just-_

_Just-_

_He'd just interrupted a _pitched _fight involving _Uchiha _and stopped _Senju Fucking Tobirama _from running a Sasuke-lookalike through. _

_Wow, _Shisui thought dizzily, _none of the Elders ever mentioned that Sasuke-chan was the split of Uchiha Izuna._

Well.

Shit.

Tobirama was evidently just as unimpressed as Shisui, yanking at the blade glued to Shisui's palms and baring his teeth when it didn't budge.

"Sorry 'bout this," Shisui couldn't help but blurt out, cringing slightly at the incredulity that washed over the future Nidaime's pale face. It was rather embarrassing to face a Hokage like this, even if he wasn't that yet, if he was young and trying to murder another man in cold blood for a feud that even Mikoto-hime, when he'd asked once, hadn't been able to answer convincingly.

And then Shisui kicked in his knee, batted his blade safely to the side and caught Tobi's stolen tantō, suddenly emerging to spear both Tobirama and Shisui at once, with his own sword. That was both Second Sons who'd avoided being skewered now.

"Do you _know _what you've just done?" Tobi snarled, ignoring the blade through his incorporeal chest.

Shisui took the opportunity to kick Izuna - who squawked indignantly and scrambled upright - back further, keeping Tobirama in the corner of his eye in case he wanted to try again. "Yeah," Shisui panted, so fucking done with all of this insanity. "I saved a man's life."

"_Who are you?" _Tobirama finally spoke up, glare glacial and aimed at both Tobi and Shisui. Shisui was going to pretend he had addressed his mysterious would-be murderer. "Uchiha in-fighting? How t-"

"_Izuna!_"

_Crap, crap - crap, crap-_

Uchiha Madara was not a man Shisui wanted to meet, let alone with a broken everything and a madman imposter, who was currently-

Shisui leapt to the side, rolling painfully on the muddy ground (no doubt Tobirama's fault) and sinking a kick through the mirage of Tobi's hip.

Tobi returned the favour with a knife he'd obviously liberated from the battlefield.

Unfortunately, Shisui couldn't use _his_ Mangekyou to escape the blade that buried into his hip, scraping bone and sparking black spots of agony across his precious vision.

It was bad enough that he'd been forced to numb his broken collarbone, another misuse mangling of Mikoto-hime's chakra lessons. Yesterday had been a miracle of survival.

Now, it felt like Shisui was overdue and Tobi had come calling, his face a mockery of a loved one and at the feet of the men who would build the home the teen had been oh so willing to die for.

The knife twisted, dragging left towards what Shisui was positive were some pretty vital organs - he'd know, he'd gutted enough targets - and Shisui, despite his… learned professionalism… couldn't contain the noise ripped from his chest.

Panting, his right hand blurred.

"Fire Style: Dragons breath."

And yet-

Tobi simply leaned through the outpouring of blistering flames Shisui loosed on his next, pained exhale. But whilst the Jutsu failed to burn, it had succeeded in one thing.

Tobi's grip faded from the handle and Shisui's replaced it, yanking free in time for Izuna to slash his own blade through Tobi's spine.

Tobi disappeared like smoke in the wind.

Izuna slashed a line across Shisui's chest instead.

Izuna's eyes flared wide, furious and murderous and expressive to the extreme. "Kami-sama-"

Shisui tried to breathe through the pain but, seeing as the newest addition to his _extensive _injury collection blazed like a brand with every expansion of his lungs, he barely managed to stay conscious. "Uh-huh," Shisui grunted, tendons taught. "He does that."

Feet shifted, sandals coming into view beside Shisui's head before Senju Tobirama of all people spoke up. "He's gone."

Shisui dropped the knife, still gripped with now-cramped fingers, and attempted to get his elbows under himself. "You think that, but no."

Tobirama's face came into view, peering down over his snowy fur collar. His expression was… incomprehensible. "His faded technique?"

Shisui peeled himself up from the mud, restless eyes flicking over the halted battlefield - apparently, they'd created a significant ruckus for a ceasefire - for a familiar face. He didn't find one but remained weary. He couldn't afford anything less. He should probably pay his cards close to the chest but these weren't his cards and he was more than willing to spill the details if it meant that bastard died. "Pocket dimension, he can sink through partially in an instant. C-" Shisui coughed wetly, turning to spit a mouthful of blood off to one side. That internal bruising had progressed, huh. Mouth clear besides the stain of fresh blood, Shisui tried again. "Can appear pretty much anywhere without warning."

Izuna shifted closer, his own sword - a traditional katana, Shisui finally paid enough attention to note - readied by his thigh. "You beat him though." There was no question in his voice. "You're fast enough."

Considering that the whole fight involving Izuna and Tobirama had taken all of eight seconds, Shisui wasn't in the position to say he was _slow. _He was named after the Body Flicker and if there was anything he did pride himself on, it was his speed. He opened his mouth… and closed it again.

"Izuna!" Madara had reached them.

A mass of black hair, wild and loose, hung down like a ragged black banner. The scarlet of his furiously spinning Sharingan contrasted sharply. The figure, expertly wrapped within an embroidered battle robe, was of medium height and stocky build, rather like-

No. Shisui… wasn't going to go there right now.

Pitch black eyes, beneath sharp brows and above delicately bruised eye-bags, danced across his younger brother's form. The caring instinct shown, even among enemies, sent a nasty thrum of _longing-anguish-grief _through the watching teen's chest.

And then Madara turned to Tobirama.

"Senju!" The Uchiha Head spat, face twisting with a loathing that made Shisui unspeakably nervous. If the Senju and Uchiha had made peace, a village for crying out loud, then surely Madara and Tobirama had to have come to some kind of… truce?

Tobirama's bland expression curled into the visual representation of pure destain.

Shisui pulled his shirt from his shoulders, eyes watering at the resulting wash of pain, and pressed the bundle of fabric to the still steadily bleeding cut. _And Izuna didn't even die this time._

…

Izuna didn't even _die this time._

Shisui's ensuing breakdown was immediately put on pause. He was in a fucking field of strangers, he was in the worst state he'd ever been in his _life, _and time was ticking to an invisible counter for Tobi's reappearance.

By some act of Kami, because Shisui really didn't know how he had the strength or stability, the teen managed to get his feet under him and hoist himself somewhat upright. He ignored the increasing noise level beside him, figuring Tobirama could disappear with that Proto-Thunder God technique of his if the Uchiha brothers decided tag team.

He had to find someplace safe, or, considering his Little Issue, at least sheltered, to assess the extent of his wounds. Not counting the beat down yesterday, he was now sporting four breaks, two stab wounds, and something that was making him cough blood. If he was lucky, it was just some ruptured vessels from all the repeated attempts at strangulation and being heaved around by his throat.

Shisui made a conscious attempt to stand straighter, catching Tobirama's eye over the brothers' shoulders and inclining his head politely.

Ignoring the weapons being waved _very _angrily at him, Tobirama stepped away and gripped Shisui's arm. Madara made a noise like a strangled cat and whirled after the younger man.

He could've dodged. But, call him sentimental, Tobirama _had _been - _would be? - _a Hokage. Before his time - _his old-time? - _but the principle still holds. Kinda.

Also just because he didn't feel his broken collarbone didn't mean he could move his arm right.

"Who is that man?" Tobirama demanded, low and stern.

Shisui smiled blandly, his other hand still holding his repurposed shirt to his chest. Kami but he was a mess.

That thought shouldn't have made him chuckle.

Shisui mentally ticked concussion onto his checklist.

Madara's eyes landed on Shisui, taking in the admittedly battered state of him, lingering on his curls and the sticky bled-through bandages. That shrewd gaze narrowed. "I don't recognise you."

Tobirama looked even more aggravated. Shisui could practically feel how the younger Senju brother judged the Clan Head for not knowing his own relations. Well. It wasn't exactly _his _fault.

Also, Shisui noted with a worrying amusement, this was the _weirdest _battlefield dynamic. Who chatted with their mortal enemy like this? And was surprised when someone almost died?

Wasn't that, like, _the point _of a feud?

Shisui then proceeded to bend over and vomit a frankly disturbing amount of blood.

His knees gave out, ass hitting the mud with Tobirama, obviously determined to pick his brains, refusing to release his bicep.

"Ahh," Shisui solemnly intoned. "Not bruising. Bastarding poison finally hit."

"You've been _poisoned?!" _Izuna screeched, shoving at his _mortal enemy_ as though the albino man was somehow at fault.

From the past few moments of interaction alone, Shisui figured that Izuna's dinner could burn and he'd still find a way to curse his rival.

Unfortunately for Shisui, Tobirama refused to relinquish his hold, instead calmly raising a leg to kick Izuna away like an asshole might a persistent street dog.

Shisui loved dogs…

"Hey, hey, easy-" the teen hissed. "I may have numbed that shoulder but broken collarbones _aren't supposed to move like that._"

Tobirama looked back at him, cherry eyes flitting over his various wounds and no doubt cataloguing how he held himself. "You have...severed the pain receptors."

He was still holding Shisui's arm, which was a little awkward. "Couldn't exactly fight unconscious?" He tried.

Nostrils flared and then the albino was squatting beside him. Honestly, from his expression, you would've thought he was being blackmailed into holding a conversation. "That is irresponsible. Numbing the pain could permanently damage the nerves."

Shisui didn't blink, didn't glance at the looming Uchiha. "Worth it."

And then foreign chakra, cool and crisp as ice water, brushed up his arm.

Shisui almost leapt a foot in the air and immediately regretted it. "Wh-"

Izuna's katana flashed silver as it curved to rest against Tobirama's throat. It could only have pissed Izuna off even more that the Senju wasn't cowed. "_What the fuck are you doing, White Bastard?"_

Shisui would admit to being just a smidge pleased that Izuna already seemed to care.

Then again, Uchiha stuck together.

Then again, Shisui had saved his life.

Then again, Izuna probably just refused to let Tobirama do anything unchecked.

"Is there _any _part of you uninjured?"

Instantly, Shisui grinned, blood in his teeth and lip cracked and dimples deep. Proud and savagely pleased because _yes_, that was something he _had _managed. "My eyes."

Izuna froze for an instant, caught off guard, before a rueful smirk quirked pale lips. Madara _stared._

A pulse of icy chakra and suddenly all feeling returned, so sudden and overwhelming that Shisui just… couldn't comprehend it. His pain receptors overloaded, like touching an iron so hot it registered as cold.

Water, thunder, sand roared in his ears.

"-what the fuck was that for-"

"-He saved my life, it is therefore within reason that I return the fav-"

Shisui blinked slowly. He could've sworn that was more the Samurai mentality but he wasn't going to exactly complain.

"_Anija!"_

And then that sun-bright chakra approached like a blaze of light, a shooting star. Shisui only managed, eyes catching on silken chocolate hair and healthy tan skin, a weak "hi~" before he was passing out.

….

Shisui came to with a pitiful whimper.

Senju Hashirama, the God of Shinobi and Shodai Hokage, immediately bounced into view. His loose hair, so much smoother than Madara's, flared around him like a silk scarf, and he looked...well. Like an oversized puppy.

Even with his hands, washed with that iconic green healing chakra, pressed to Shisui's bare chest.

The mud was still beneath him, the field now mainly cleared, and Shisui could only assume that he hadn't blacked out for long.

He could've kicked himself but… really, it was a miracle he'd lasted this long.

"You're awake!" Hashirama beamed.

That delighted announcement seemed to be a watershed moment.

"Who are you?" Izuna leaned in impatiently, careful to avoid getting anywhere close to invading Hashirama's personal space.

"Your name." Madara insisted, Sharingan activated.

Tobirama was silent but, stepping closer to his brother's hunched back, folded his arms and conveyed with the most minimal of body language that he expected an explanation regardless of the other events spirally chaotically around them.

Hashirama's chakra soaked through his collarbone, which had evidently been reset whilst he was dead to the world - _okay, that humour really sucked - _and Shisui was silent.

His head rested against the soft turf earth, one arm sprawled and the other manoeuvred, wrapped with a fresh bandage, to support how seriously he and Tobi had fucked up his collarbone between them.

His ankle was wrapped. Huh. Shisui hadn't even realised that the deep ache had been anything but overuse and exhaustion.

He hissed when Hashirama taped up his ribs.

"_Well?" _Izuna insisted.

Shisui… didn't know how to proceed.

He'd already changed history, had done so just by appearing with Tobi, the two of them throwing around the bloodline without reservation, and now he'd saved Izuna, met the village founders, and-

And now what?

He couldn't undo what he'd done.

Hashirama had his chakra wrapped around his own and he was seriously fucked up too. Tobirama was said to be the strongest sensor in Konoha's history. There wasn't a chance in hell of getting out of here, no imaginary escape route that was anything close to viable.

There wasn't any way to avoid this either. He could kill Izuna, as heartless and wasteful as that felt, but even that wouldn't right the timeline. It would be a mysterious Uchiha, not Tobirama, who had marked that tragedy in the Konoha's founding history.

And he couldn't erase the memory of them, two mysterious hitherto unknown Uchiha fighting like wild, rabid dogs.

No, no there was no going back.

Madara, in a blur of motion, rested a small blade, once tucked up his sleeve, against the hollow of Shisui's throat. "You might have saved my brother but I will not hesitate. Speak."

Tobirama unsheathed his own katana just as Hashirama, an expression so deeply disappointed that Shisui almost felt _he _was intruding, gasped "Madara!"

"_Speak_."

"You would cut down your own kin?" Tobirama scoffed derisively, blade held carefully. Evidently, Tobirama had a stricter moral code than the Uchiha Elders had led Shisui to believe. The Nidaime had been remembered for his deep suspicion of the Uchiha Clan, the prejudice that endured the Founding and would come to taint how the Uchiha resided within the village that was, rightfully, _half theirs._

To hear the Elders speak of him, Shisui would've thought Tobirama would try to kill him himself. If not, express nothing but pragmatic calculation at the thought of Uchiha infighting, and how he could manipulate for the Senju's favour.

Apparently, however, mercy was mercy. And Tobirama considered himself at a debt until he could return the sentiment.

"He is not of the Clan." The elder Uchiha rebuked, certain. Izuna looked faintly regretful but didn't mutiny against his brother's authority. "Now," Madara addressed Shisui once more, gaze as heavy and fathomless as a physical weight. "Name."

Shisui swallowed, feeling the razor-sharp edge graze his Adam's apple. "Shisui."

All eyes were on him.

Madara didn't let up. "Shisui?" _Uchiha?_

The teen's lips twisted, just slightly. _Did it count if they were all dead? _

"Just," his voice was lower, a touch hoarse. "Just Shisui."

Madara's jaw flexed discreetly. Probably assuming Shisui a battlefield baby. Maybe even worse. "And your… the other?"

_Ob-_"Tobi."

"Why were you here. You did not come to join the Clan, I gather, nor to attack us."

Shisui's eyes burned to drop, but the tell would scream guilt and-

He forced his eyes to remain steady. "I didn't come to interfere." He couldn't speak for that bastard and there wasn't a chance he was going to group them together. "He was after my..."

Madara's nostrils flared as he sucked in a breath, mouth clamped in an unhappy line. "Enough." Obviously, he wasn't going to discuss anything further with the Senju _right there._ Speaking of, Shisui looked around with a dizzy bemusement that guaranteed that yes, he _had _had a concussion. The field was largely clear besides the five of them, a Senju Kunoichi loitering by the far tree line and another Uchiha Scout perched high in a tree directly opposite her. "We'll discuss this further with the Elders."

Shisui blinked slowly. "Elders?"

Hashirama got there first. "Madara! You can't take Shisui-kun-," Whoa there, friendly, "- and hide him away! He saved Tobirama too!" And, finally, he removed his hands. He was sweating faintly, dampness to his brow and his breathing swept slightly deeper than normal. Shisui's set breaks still ached uncomfortably, his head a little fuzzy, and his stomach aching from that damn ROOT Aburame's poison. His bruises and cuts - and that one little, tiny, bone-scratching stab - were sealed over neatly. Considering Shisui knew that Tobirama could have only perfected the concept of iryo ninjutsu relatively recently so Hashirama could have only been practising it for a short time, the teen was impressed.

Oh, they were still arguing.

"He's an Uchiha by birth, don't interfere with a Clan issue, Hashirama," Madara growled, jerking away from all of the older Senju's attempts to lay beseeching hands on him.

"He also involved the Senju," Tobirama injected himself, completely ignoring his brothers less than dignified whining.

This was exhausting and Shisui was far beyond that. "Why," he interrupted the commotion with a firm tone and purposefully addressing Hashirama. "Did you heal me, Senju-sama?" There was really no harm in politeness. And Shisui wanted it clear that whatever _this _shit, this war, was - yeah, he wanted no part of it.

Hashirama blinked big doe eyes at him. Clearly, a polite Uchiha was a foreign concept. How depressing, if expected. "You saved my brother," a smile, gentler and unashamedly thankful, curled his lips. "I didn't think an Uchiha…" he trailed off, glancing at Madara hopefully.

Shisui hated to burst his bubble. But, maybe, quoting some of Itachi's rhetoric, murmured like a confession on their special training trips, would hammer his stance home before anyone could try and direct him. He'd had enough of that between Danzo and the Elders. "I wouldn't let someone die if I could help, Senju-sama. Especially when the blow was aimed at me and therefore my responsibility."

Tobirama interrupted, pale brows slightly furrowed in a microexpression of accusation. "You didn't wish to involve anyone else in your battle."

It wasn't phrased like a question but Shisui nodded regardless.

"And yet," Tobirama continued. Under that stare, Shisui felt rather like a jigsaw puzzle one piece from completion only for the other man to discover that the final piece didn't actually fit. "_You _interrupted our fight."

Izuna, who had been default-expression glaring at Tobirama this entire time, flicked black eyes between his would-be murderer and his saviour.

Shisui didn't have a good line for this. Admitting to knowing who Izuna was would suggest some kind of… instinctive loyalty to the Uchiha Clan. That he felt it imperative to save the life of the Second Son. Or, seeing as Madara _was _Head, the Heir.

Honesty it was.

Shisui licked his lip, tongue sweeping over the sore half-scabbed cut. "Izuna-sama... Reminded me of my brother. It was," Shisui couldn't bare to meet their gazes anymore. His eyes slid shut, chin dipping slightly as though paying respect to the grave he would never see. _Sasuke-chan… I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry I couldn't save you. _"It was instinct."

A stilted pause. Both Uchihas glanced at bead above his ear. All of these men had lost brothers.

"And how did you outmatch my technique?"

The 19-year old only just managed to withhold a physical reaction. _What._

He peeled his eyelids back, chin up and quirked his head. "My...Shunshin?"

This time, it was Tobirama's turn to blink. "Body Flicker?"

They stared at each other. Shisui didn't understand. "...Yes?"

And, suddenly, lips parted to reveal straight teeth in what was _not _a smile-

Tobirama looked _insulted. _

Oh_._

_Oh._

_The Body Flicker is considered one of the most basic chakra techniques, alongside water and tree walking. Very little skill required to achieve, very little chakra, often no hand signs. And yet… I was _faster _than the space-time technique that would precede the Yondaime's._

"Well, you know," Shisui tried to lessen the chance he was accidentally cultivating resentment with the younger Senju. "Don't practise until you can do it right, practice until you can't do it wrong?"

Which was really what he'd done. Even half-asleep or half-dead, Shisui knew that he could Shunshin between one breath and another and do so perfectly. It was like his chakra, even unfocused, was permanently poised to go the split second he applied the intent.

"That's scientifically-"

"Don't _you _start," Madara spat, temper finally fracturing as he twisted to sneer at the albino man. "It's _your _cheating Jutsu-"

Tobirama froze, snapping out of the technical mindset Shisui had unwittingly drawn him into and straight back into the stern soldier. He shot Izuna a look of pure loathing, at if he would like nothing more than to finish the job, before immediately rising to Madara's barb.

"We are _shinobi-"_

"-that almost _killed Izuna!"_

"You cannot possibly-"

Shisui was certainly a hot commodity.

In fact… Shisui's bemused optimism faded a cold grasp of reality curling around his spine. It seemed that was the reality he had to live with now. Shisui knew the stories about their Dojutsu. The fear and the pain needed to activate, the tragedy and responsibility of murdering a love… the blindness. The madness.

The price of power.

Shisui had activated his Sharingan when he was eight, a Genin on the tail end of a war who witnessed far too much far, far too soon. Back then he had had precious little skill, save for his basic kenjutsu and a habit of using the Body Flicker to save himself from decapitation. And, when you had nothing, well. You made the most of it. And Shisui had perfected the two things he only really had. Had perfected them to make them _his. _Shunshin no Shisui the older Chuunins had called him as a bit of banter. And then it became serious.

And then it was his first Bingo Book entry.

_E-Class: Recognise On Sight. Uchiha 'Shunshin no Shisui'. Escape artist. Konoha affil._

A price on his head by ten. What a thing to be proud of.

Then he'd joined ANBU.

His loved ones died. _His brother _died.

He had always been a shinobi...a _person… _who had worked his way up. An orphan raised by neighbours. They hadn't even known their mother's name. Yes, yes, he had been born into a Clan, had developed the Dojutsu young and matured it fully faster than anyone before Itachi. But, in wartime, nearly _every _Uchiha had activated their Sharingan. Shisui wasn't _anything special._

He'd just… seen a lot. Had to _do_ a lot to survive.

His brother had been the human one. Shisui, quietly possessive, had been the one so fixated on grabbing his lot in life and _refusing to let go. _He'd only been just under three years his brothers junior and he was determined, desperate, to protect him.

He'd failed, nowhere near when his brother had died. He hadn't even been aware he _was _in danger.

Itachi… Itachi had been a balm afterwards. Mikoto-hime, his unofficial aunt and unofficial Shisou, had had a baby on the battlefield and playing the older brother, trying to be a good one, had soothed some ache inside him. Sasuke had made everything even better, the little tyke was so easy to laugh with and tease at, so much more open than Itachi who, like him, had been scarred too young. He'd guided Itachi's ridiculous intellect but he'd indulged the childhood Sasuke would enjoy.

He had _people. _He had his own niche. His place in the world. And maybe it wasn't perfect, maybe the empty spaces had ached like gaping wounds, but… happiness of any kind was to be looked after and cherished and Shisui wasn't going to take anything for granted.

And then the world had started to crumble and nothing was as he thought, the ground wasn't the stability holding him up and the sky was not endless above his head, and-

In the Bingo Book, Shisui had always been hunted because of his own skills, his own tenacity. He slipped around danger like liquid nitrogen, intangible as smoke. _He'd _done that.

His Mangekyou wasn't the power boost people thought it was. Yes, Shisui had the ability and he had the protection of his _Susanoo._ But he'd never relied on it, it hadn't worked that way for him, and with the inevitable deterioration of his sight, it was nothing but a symbol of witnessed tragedy.

Danzo had wanted it, proven capable of _anything._

Tobi had _deceived him, toyed with him, broken something inside him_ for his eyes. Had taken him here and fucked up so much shit that Shisui could barely even fathom the potential outcomes. And Shisui, because some fucking psychopath had wanted these _goddamned _eyes, had fucked everything up right alongside him too.

The Uchiha weren't going to just let him go. The Senju wanted to pump him for information. The Uchiha wanted him because, as a Sharingan wielder, he _belonged _to them.

Shisui wanted to riot, to scream about what _he _wanted - which was for peace and honesty and for the people he'd loved, who had loved him in return just as he was.

But that was what his brother would've done.

Shisui had always been a little too good at following orders.

"I'll go with you."

It hadn't been graceful. The Senju brothers wanted answers, they wanted reassurance over Tobi, so willing to kill Tobirama to get to Shisui - literally - and with a technique that slipped around Tobirama's famed sensing. They were also incessantly _nosey. _Oh sure, Tobirama swathed his in a veneer called 'scientific research' whilst Hashirama unabashedly begged to be included in the know, but the brothers were more alike than their opposing attitudes and appearances suggested.

Unfortunately for them, Madara had a claim so strong that the Senju's presence was like a fox in the road of a horse and carriage.

Shisui _was _an Uchiha _with _a Sharingan - although thank Kami he hadn't flashed his Mangekyou for all and sundry but, seeing as the bastard _had_ and that Shisui had insinuated that he wanted his eyes… well, it didn't take a genius. He'd also fought said 'Uchiha' psychopath and he had saved Izuna.

Three for three.

The parting of mortal enemies on the battlefield was such a bizarre one that, to Shisui, it felt like something of a fever dream. The way Tobirama stared at him as if everything was his fault and only a thorough pick through of Shisui's brain would excuse such appalling behaviour, and the way Hashirama _waved _at _Madara. _

Seriously, what the fuck was going on.

Was this _actually _real?

"Hiroaki-san," Madara had spoken as their party of three approached the treeline. Izuna was walking sideways, an eye fixed on the departing Senju. In response, the scout in the tree above them leapt to the ground, landing in a crouch before smoothly rising and casually resting a hand on their sheath.

"Madara-sama," Hiroaki replied, not glancing at Shisui once.

"Sweep. Izuna," the younger brother turned to show he was listening, "Take point. Shisui-san, with me."

Considering that the Uchiha compound of Shisui's… time… had been towards the centre of the village, which had made the tensions feel even more overwhelming and inescapable, he didn't have to fake not knowing where they were going. Minute hesitations as they ran through the woods, lingering towards Hiroaki-san's flank as though following his direction. All of it genuine and all of it noted by the Uchiha around him.

These woods, however, _were _those surrounding Konoha.

How he'd not recognised them?

Because they were chakra rich and that had been _gone _by Shisui's time. Two major chakra wielding Clans resided within these forests and, considering some of the powerhouses that each boasted, added with the relatively low impact they actually had upon the environment around them, and things were _nourished. _

The concept of Nature Chakra, of the Sages like Jiraiya of the Sannin, was a convoluted one. It was really a matter of harmony and patience, alongside specific requirements, from what Shisui could gather. People had chakra within themselves and that's what they used when moulding into jutsus and the like.

It had fallen out of practice over time but Shisui remembered the chakra concentration exercises that Mikoto-hime had insisted he spends time on. The Uchiha had maintained the widespread use of the meditation, which involved familiarising your core to both yourself and the latent chakra around you.

Sages, apparently, then absorbed chakra from that very nature.

Shisui had learned to simply breathe with it, like sitting upon the shore as the tide washed over and tugged at you.

During this era, where harmony with one's core allowed for faster and easier chakra manipulation, shinobi could meditate for hours on ends as part of their perceived daily training.

When Tenzo-kun used to do it - because the Hatakes had been very traditional and Kakashi-senpai had been a lot of things and melancholic was definitely one of them - he made the grass flower around him.

Shisui usually felt like he'd been sunbathing too long.

(Genma fell asleep.)

But the flow of chakra, in woods that flourished largely untouched by people and with chakra both accessed and manipulated, had somehow… elevated itself. It felt more tangible.

Maybe there was another reason Konoha had been founded in the valley nearby.

They ran for a good hour, curving both left and right enough for Shisui to pick up that he was being led the...uh..._scenic route_.

It was a futile effort to mislead him but Shisui would've judged them more had they _not _done it.

Soon they finally slowed, dropping from the boughs to the forest floor. Madara naturally took the lead as Hiroaki fell back, Izuna moving forward to Shisui's side.

Shisui's first glimpse of the Clan compound was… longing mixed with intrigue.

The houses and buildings themselves were largely hidden from ground-level view. A huge wall, no doubt several feet thick, had been built around the circumference and, strangely enough, felt like _Uchiha chakra _in of itself. They must've cast the bricks themselves...

The gate itself was...rather like the one in Konoha, complete with a small guardhouse. Although, the Konoha guards had been stationed just outside and to the left of the huge doors, perpetually ajar to admit merchants and travellers. The Uchiha one was sealed tightly shut, the walls either side jutting upwards a few metres to form two small watchtowers, a walkway running over the top of the gate to connect them. Inside the right hand one, Shisui could see two Uchiha Guards, one pointing down the side of the wall, the other carefully monitoring their approach.

The second one, as soon as they cleared the trees and were only a few metres from the gate, descended to greet them.

"Madara-sama, the Elders are waiting in the Main Hall," She reported, stepping aside to let the four of them pass. She was a good bit taller than all of them, hair pixie short and a skin-tight, high red collar covering her neck and chin, rather like Tenzo-kun.

Madara thanked her and quietly requested a spare shirt for shisui, before sending her back to her post as he turned to gesture towards Izuna. His brother followed some code Shisui, his head stuck into the neck-hole of the shirt he was painfully struggling into, completely missed as Izuna brought a pale hand up to wrap around Shisui's, which he then tucked into his own elbow. Ah. He was being escorted _whilst _allowing Izuna to keep a cautionary hand on him.

Now that they were inside, Shisui had no scruples turning this way and that, eyes interested and body language open. It was _busy. _Busier than he would've thought, busier than the Uchiha had been during _his time. _Shisui had expected a ghost town, so to speak, filled with widows and stoney warriors. A people suffering from constant war and little security.

Not...not a _metropolis_.

And yet, there was evidence of this harsh world. Directly inside the gate, a huge samurai-style longhouse, probably filled with supplies, an emergency healing ward, a weapons storage. Guards, recognisable by their red neck sleeves like the Guard who had greeted them, flitted around like fireflies.

Everyone Shisui could see was on the leaner side, beside a few of the elderly. A slimness that spoke of hard times and grief over vanity.

It was beyond bizarre and Shisui didn't know how to cope with the emotional and mental onslaught.

One day, eighty or so years from now, this entire Clan would be destroyed. Every last chakra signature. The old, the young, the warriors and the peaceful. Dead, and for what?

Shisui had never believed in the coup. What could come from the war of one, repressed Clan and the entire village that surrounded them, if not tragedy? He'd been willing to try, to use his Mangekyou to erase the idea from the Elders minds, if that's what it took to preserve this. Their family, their _culture_. The innocent, who would suffer the most.

Shisui's chest felt hot, his eyes burning, and it wasn't until Izuna rested a warm, calloused hand on top of his, still tucked into the older man's arm, that Shisui realised he'd activated his Sharingan.

There were children in the street, dark hair ranging between pitch black to the deepest mahogany red or a rich nutty brown. They were all armed, even the ones too young to be learning or too thin to have started, but they were also _confident._

The houses themselves, a good few with sheathes of dyed fabrics and tanned leather hung out to cure in the yard, were simple but still decorated. Carvings into the posts, half-familiar and half foreign, like the vague memory of a childhood lullaby. He'd… seen them before. Maybe it had been at Fugaku-sama and Mikoto-hime's house, maybe at the Naka Shrine… certainly at the Clan memorial. They looked like a mixture of the geometric and cursive, vaguely likening to the Old Clan Scrolls of the Moon and Amaterasu.

Some houses were worn, the carvings long rubbed smooth and, whilst obviously cleaned, their splendour had become less magnificent and more melancholy. Others, with beams or windows or doors or even entire walls strikingly fresh, appeared half new. Obviously repaired and repaired _well. _

It was a contrast. Days of old carefully patched up.

And there was grief too.

Memory Tokens, which Shisui had grown up instinctively knowing to be uniquely Uchiha, hung from every single porch. The red lanterns were carefully painted with the same Uchiha iconography, the curls of cats, eyes, hares and crows, all overarched by the lunar cycle. From them hung beads, each unique and individually designed to represent the memory of a lost loved one. Braided down ribbons in family units, connections, every single house was heartbreakingly adorned. Some of the Guards, especially ones old enough to have children or spouses, had braided sections of their hair with specific beads.

These hair braids were, in a way, even more, painful to behold. Parents, siblings… lovers. Children.

Shisui wondered how he was going to fit a village worth into his own curls.

Almost every house had an adjourning garden, many transformed into well-tended garden patches. Some orchards, some with chicken runs, others growing fruits and vegetables. There were even some greenhouses; although, with the mild weather of Fire Country, Shisui could only spot one, filled with what appeared to be some very late-season strawberries. It was a clever way to circumvent many of the security risks of broader scale agriculture. Each street would easily feed it's occupants this way, and the Clan would therefore only have to import or, rear beyond the walls, things like tea, rice and meat.

He hadn't realised it had been like this. History books and word of mouth focused on economics and war, the reasons why the village was so much better than the constant warring.

The compound Shisui had known had been built along similar lines but far fallen from grace. After the Kyuubi, even though the compound had been largely undamaged, the place had fallen further and further into disrepair. Houses stood vacant, children scampering away from the main roads or any visitors. Like a dog grew weary on the streets, suspicious of every offered hand.

It had been one thing to stand and watch as conditions and relations worsened, believing that the Uchiha had once moved on from a death-haunted existence to one with more hope.

It was another thing entirely, as Shisui slowed to a stop with traitorous tears gathering along his lashes, to see the vibrancy of what had once been. The strength of identity, which he had only known as a pale shadow of itself.

"Shisui-san?" Izuna's voice was gentle, if confused, and was almost the polar opposite of anything Shisui had heard from the older man since he'd first seen him. Somehow, it made the situation feel all the direr.

"Ah," Shisui cleared his throat, expertly blinking back tears as if they'd never been there in the first place and tearing his eyes from the beads falling down behind a boy's ear. He couldn't have been in double digits yet but the placing suggested he was already carrying both parents and a sister with him. "Forgive me, Izuna-sama… just some dust from the road, you see."

Izuna just stared at him, obviously disbelieving but understanding that they were strangers so he couldn't just _call him out. _No more than Shisui could start rattling on about peace and the Clan's secrets and whether Izuna cried about _his _beads.

Shisui had only ever worn the one. He'd crafted it himself, as was tradition and had cast aside nearly a dozen before he was satisfied and his tears momentarily spent. A mixture of bright amber flecks, ruby red and a speckling of aquamarine. Dusted across a bead of molten glass he had melted himself with chakra and shaped between his palms. A senbon poked through and he'd held it until it had cooled, rolling the thin ninja needle between his fingers so it wouldn't warp or drip and crying so hard he thought he'd be sick.

It was braided in tightly at his left temple, the strand secured at both ends so it was held safely close to the scalp.

Izuna's black eyes flicked across to the flame-like bead and Shisui abruptly remembered to deactivate his Dojutsu.

And then it hit him.

Noone born outside of the Clan, of the compound, would know about the beads, nevermind the rest.

_Fuck._

But there was no fixing it now and Shisui wasn't sure he could've borne even touching the bead at the moment, let alone removing it.

The wound, long closed over but aching at every opportunity, was raw. Eight years and it felt like Tobi had brought Obito back just to kill him again. Only this time, Shisui had been there and Shisui had done nothing.

_I'm going to find him. Or he's going to find me. And I'll tear that eye from him myself._

There-

There was no _way, no_ _way _it could've actually been Obito. Nevermind that he had been crushed to death, a Genin with huge dreams but lacking the patience for the long journey to get there. But Shisui was pretty chakra sensitive, had been even back then when he was a rank above _him_ but two years his junior, all because his use of Shunshin had made him hyper-aware of everyone else's movements around him. And Shisui _knew _his Obito's chakra, unmistakable.

Tobi was not him.

That eye…

Shisui felt sick. _He must've dug out the...corpse._

Tobi wanted Shisui's eye… well, it looked like Shisui would be turning the tables. Because there was no way Shisui was going to let that bastard boast the ability that should rightly have been Obito's. Kakashi-senpai had received the other as a sign of comradeship, forgiveness… friendship.

_And yet… he'd never used the Mangekyou? How had Obito skipped the initial activation and matured straight to Mangekyou? The specifications alone… and Kakashi had never once… maybe it was because the Sharingan had been implanted, just as Kakashi could never deactivate it either… but then how could Tobi? Unless he was also born an-_

The prospect rolled Shisui's stomach, even as he continued to follow Izuna down the streets.

The chances of Tobi also being an Uchiha, and therefore able to control…

But the scars.

How had he replicated Obito's face, who died barely thirteen, perfectly matured to adulthood? The gnarled scars where Obito had been crushed, that strange… moulded… left side…

He'd… looked quite a bit like Shisui himself.

Di-

"Shisui-san," Izuna prompted, snapping Shisui from his micro-breakdown like a wet rag to the face. "The Elders are gathered inside."

The older man had a single foot up on the first of three steps to the Hall's front porch, turned to face the teen. _Oh. _He'd been about to walk straight into the jam.

Blood rushed, staining Shisui's cheeks the faintest pink. "A-ah...sorry." Shisui scurried to Izuna's side before hesitantly gesturing towards the double doors. "Shall we?"

_Stupid. It's his own compound-_

Izuna snorted lightly, lips quirking to the side in a flat jerk. Shisui kind of hoped the Clan wasn't about to hate him. He liked Izuna. (He didn't remind him of anyone either.)

The Elders, as Shisui feared, were sat seiza in two long lines inside the hall, Madara at their head. They were dressed well, but not opulently, many in daywear yukatas or their battle gear, like Madara still was.

Unexpectedly, they weren't old.

The oldest could have only been twice Shisui's age, forty at most. Ageing was a rare luxury at this time apparently.

Izuna bowed low, Shisui following a beat afterwards and then seated himself a respectful distance away from the gathering. Izuna himself sat slightly to the side. Shisui couldn't even tell if he was there as a witness or security. Whether to guard or restrain Shisui was also completely up in the air too.

"Greetings, Shinobi-san," Madara started the proceedings.

"Greetings, Uchiha-san," Shisui bowed to Madara again, hands folded and eyes differential. "Honourable Elders…"

A round of shallow bows and nods. Every single eye was fastened onto the teen.

Finally, an older woman, and by older shisui meant no more than thirty-five, spoke up. Her voice was soft but confident. "You are here, as we understand it, Shinobi-san, to be recognised as a Clan member."

_What._

_What?!_

Shisui glanced sharply at Madara, barely containing his internal shriek. He hadn't signed up for that! _They hadn't discussed anything! If this was supposed to be some fucked up reward for saving Izuna, Madara could sho-_

Madara stared levelly back at him before deliberately letting his eyes wander to the bandages peeking out of Shisui's borrowed shirt collar, his arm still strapped in tight beneath the fabric, the collection of lacerations half-healed around his eyes. As if to say, 'you need this, you need _us.'_

Shisui set his jaw. This was _not _part of the plan.

"Yes… Elder-sama." Shisui gritted out.

The female Elder nodded sagely. "And you understand that we must query about your… background."

_Naturally_. "Yes, Elder-sama."

She nodded again, sharper and decisive. "Well. Umeko-sama?"

Another female Elder, this one obviously in the first few months of pregnancy, nodded and adjusted her brush and paper set out before her on a low table. Great. A scribe.

"Your name, Shinobi-san?"

"Shisui."

_"...Uchiha_ Shisui?"

Biting the inside of his cheek, Shisui could only shrug. This wasn't a lie either. "I presume so. I never knew my mother."

That made the Elders exchange glances and Madara look faintly indignant. By insinuating that Shisui's father had been the Uchiha, the chances of Shisui being the result of rape wherein the Uchiha Clan were the guilty assaulters increased.

"Who raised you, Shisui-san?"

Again, honesty. Rooting a story in the truth was your best bet at keeping facts straight after all. "Whoever was around, the adults who lived near us. My brother, a bit."

A spark of interest. Madara glanced quickly at Shisui's bead, so fast it appeared to be nothing more than a waver in his gaze.

"Brother?"

Shisui nodded. "He was two years older than me. We had the same parents."

Everyone noted the past tense. The amber bead.

And relaxed a little more too. Two children, from the same parents at different times, decreased the chance of rape to something very very small. Mercy.

"Do you know either of their names?" The first Elder continued.

Shisui didn't even hesitate. Father? No. But, my grandfather? _Kagami. "_No, Elder-sama."

"Your carers, neighbours, could tell you nothing? Not even a description?" A bearded elder, hair pulled back into a strict topknot, prodded himself into the questioning. "Surely they must've met your mother when she was pregnant with you, especially if your brother and yourself were born at different times!"

The nineteen-year-old floundered. The truth was that his neighbours, his entire Clan, had _never_ been able to give them _any_ answers. His brother, they said, hadn't been there one day but was the next. Fumihiro-sama, Fugaku-sama's father, had announced him to be Kagami's grandson without any explanation. No one had even known Kagami had even _had _a child, although the man had spent a third of his life playing ambassador to Uzushiogakure before dying in the siege. Fumihiro-sama's cousin, Yoko, had been his brother's wet nurse and, when Shisui had been all but abandoned on her doorstep two years later, she had done the same again. They were brothers, Fumihiro-sama had always insisted. And, Kami, if they didn't look similar too.

But… why all the secrecy? Nii-san had expended a lot of energy trying to demand answers. Shisui, years later and alone, had lowered himself to begging the Sandaime for even a scrap of information on his grandfather and his mysterious parents. He'd received nothing but haggard, pitying silence.

"Hn," Beard Elder decided to move on, somewhat unsatisfied but tolerant. "Where did you live?"

And this was where the story would become...tricky. Shisui couldn't say _anywhere_ near here. He'd be found out almost immediately! However, he had to also choose somewhere where the Uchiha had travelled to and he could confidently navigate should he ever 'return'. A generalisation wouldn't cut it.

"...The Land of Lakes."

"Lakes?" The Elder paused. "There are no Shinobi clans…"

"No," Shisui admitted. He'd picked it because of its reasonable proximity to Konoha and because he'd travelled through on countless missions into Wind Country.

"Then how came you to be trained?"

Shisui spread his hands, innocent and beseeching. "Shinobi used to travel through occasionally and… I always had a talent with my chakra." _A bit of a stretch_. "We were excitable kids so, once, one of the Shinobi in the bar told us to sit still and concentrate on 'the warmth'." _Which was, obviously, a roundabout way of saying meditate on your chakra_. "I tried it and found it frustrating." Shisui shrugged again. "But the other locals realised that getting me, getting the both of us to focus on that was a great way to get us quiet or out of the way for a bit. Tree and water walking came afterwards and by then a few Shinobi locals -the unaffiliated of course," Shisui reassured them. "-Didn't seem to care about tossing out some advice to two orphan brats."

The room was silent and then Madara leaned forward, eyes intent. "How did you activate your Sharingan?"

Shisui's heart thrummed, anxious and bruised, in the cavern of his chest. They'd been at this for so long already. His throat was growing hoarse, his knees stiff...would it ever ends?

"I was eight and a local boy I was friends with was killed in front of me by bandits. I'd been...practising for a while before then. But, when it happened… I was helpless."

No-one commented on his age. It probably wasn't unusual here.

"And your brother?"

Shisui swallowed, feeling faint. Sweat trickled down his nape. He'd been rehashing the possibilities earlier… speaking them aloud was out of the question, even if the thought wasn't almost enough to trigger a panic attack. Time to twist truths again. "Thirteen."

"And his death?" The first Elder inquired, tone calm.

Shisui swallowed around the fist in his throat. "A short time afterwards. Selfish… cruel shinobi crushed him." The words burned. Shisui wanted to curse their names, not gloss their intentions. "A Jutsu went wrong."

His hands clenched white in his lap. Hopefully, they'd relate his reaction to enduring grief and not the savage, half bit back desire to desecrate the shallow graves his sensei had left his brother's murderers to rot in.

Those graves didn't exist anymore.

….

Three hours later, Shisui staggered out of the hall a preliminary Uchiha.

Under a probationary period of course.

He was exhausted, emotionally wrought and twitchy after spilling whatever he could, heavily censored, about the eye-thieving potential-Uchiha they were dealing with.

The elders hadn't been impressed that Shisui had saved Tobirama, impressing upon Shisui that his ignorance of the Uchiha-Senju feud would not be tolerated in the future. Shisui had argued that he had needed to remove Tobirama from the situation in order to counter Tobi's attack. They had replied that human shields were useful in a three-way battle. Knowing he had nowhere to go but dig himself in further, Shisui had danced away from that particular topic as swiftly as possible and, for reasons Shisui didn't think he would ever understand, Madara didn't even try to stop him. Which was insane considering he'd been right there when Tobirama himself had demanded an explanation?

Bringing the topic back to Tobi had worked, though. Bloodline Theft was an extremely serious issue, a reason to declare war. But to be able to both steal a Mangekyou _and _utilise it almost fully?

Shisui would almost dare to say that, compared to the old feud with the Senju with which they were almost drawn to a stalemate, Tobi was conceivably the more dangerous threat.

Then again, Shisui knew the village would form, the strongest in history. Tobi was as dangerous and alien to him as he was to the Uchiha.

But they thought he was another Uchiha, albeit a violently independent one.

Shisui didn't even know if he could refute that.

"Shisui-san!" A woman called out, stood off to the far side of the steps. Shisui didn't recognise her from the proceedings inside; word really did travel fast, huh. She was middle-aged, one of the oldest Shisui had seen so far save a few grandmothers, with her salt and pepper hair pulled back into a low bun with what looked like a pair of cooking chopsticks. She wore her beads in great hanging earring strands, almost touching her shoulders. "Uchiha Ren-" She looked no-nonsense so Shisui hurried across the steps to her and bowed quickly. "You're to stay with me."

Shisui blinked. "Oh! I thought.."

Ren quirked a thin brow. "There are no inns here, Shisui-san. Only home or the streets."

The teen blushed, feeling strangely flustered, and stuttered, "Forgive me, Ren-san, and thank you for your hospitality."

"Yes, yes," Ren-san waved him off, already turning to march down the street towards one of the older, more decorated - and therefore, more worn - houses. "I live alone so I expect your full cooperation. You may be saying with me but no pampered guests darken _my _door." She seemed inordinately pleased at her ability to sidestep the usual ornate and deeply symbolic gestures of hosting in their culture. Shisui, who fell asleep with appalling frequency at tea ceremonies, was an awkward mixture of relieved and trepidatious. Why did he feel like he was about to become a pair of arms and legs for her disposal?

That's because he was.

Apparently, whilst Shisui underwent the slow torture of bureaucracy inside the hall, someone had organised for Shisui to live with one of the villages 'Tenders'. His rough, potentially-inn-orientated, upbringing had also preceded him. The Tenders, Ren-san promptly explained as they walked, were the Uchiha members who did not have a stricter occupation. They weren't warriors or workmen, artisans or cooks. Instead, considering the abundance of 'pocket-farms', the garden vegetable patches Shisui gathered, a number of permanent residents took it upon themselves to keep things in functioning order whilst those with more outward-looking occupations were away.

In short, Ren-san cleaned everyone in her street's houses and tended everyone's gardens.

In Shisui's time, those tasks would have generated a tonne of D Rank missions for Genin graduates. As it was, Ren-san seemed to function on an exchange system; if she tended to a seamstress' house and garden, her clothes were mended or sewn up for free. And so on and so on.

It was very sneaky, putting Shisui in Ren-san's charge. He would be stuck in the village, under careful watch, whilst becoming familiar with both compound lifestyle and the people themselves. A kind of community service, like house arrest that extended to the compound itself.

Shisui wasn't sure he minded but-

Surely, placing him smack bang in the middle of the Uchiha stronghold, surrounded by civilians and the elderly and children, with Tobi hunting him was an incredible risk. The bastard could sweep through the Compound and just-

His mind scattered back to the Compound from _his _era, the last time he'd been there.

The way Tobi could phase through anything…

Shisui shuddered, stomach rolling as he looked around, the hardship and the strength around him. It could happen again.

_It could happen again._

No, Shisui commanded himself. He wouldn't let him.

Tobi had no reason to go on a killing spree (- _he hadn't exactly had one before -_) so Shisui just had to be conscious of his own vulnerability.

He'd arm himself, heal fast, remain alert… avoid children.

"Here we are!" Ren-san announced, opening the front door of, Shisui assumed, her house. It was older, all of the posts and supporting beams heavily carved. Her Memory Token denoted her parents, a brother and the memory of her own wife. At he passed, Shisui ducked his chin in respect.

He removed his shoes just inside the doorway, wincing at the mud and blood flaking off of them. He savagely repressed the memory of where the blood was from, the pools pitch-black as ink in the streets under the moon-

_No._

_Breathe. You're here, Shisui. Not there. Everything from then may as well be a dream now because it's not happened. None of those tragedies has happened. And you _can _change things. Izuna is proof enough._

He sucked in a heavy breath, lungs luxuriating even as his throat ached with phantom pain.

"Been a while since you've been in a home, eh?" Ren-san interrupted his thoughts, holding a pair of spare house slippers in one hand, the other cushioned on her cocked hip.

_It felt like a lifetime, not yesterday morning. _"Something like that," Shisui hedged, mouth quirked with wry humour.

"Well," Ren-san bustled forward and slapped his arm with the offered slippers, which Shisui had to hurry to grab lest she throws them, before gesturing for Shisui to follow her further inside. "No use in dallying. You're _filthy _and I won't have you traipsing all that muck into my home."

Hurrying after her - Shisui felt like this was going to become the norm whilst saying with the commanding woman - the teen jerked to a halt at the sight that greeted him in what seemed to be the house's utility room.

That was, Ren-san pouring scalding hot kettle water into a huge bath-sized basin. The kind of basin that Shisui had seen a number of Inuzuka use to wash their partners in.

_Oh, Kami._

"Well?" Ren-san huffed impatiently, heaving another kettle of steaming water into the bath. "Strip, boy!"

Shisui turned _so _red.

"I-I-," he floundered, mortified. Kami, even his chest felt hot, all prickly and flushed with a blush that burned from the tips of cherry-red ears to his fingertips and halfway down his torso. "Now?"

Ren-san planted a hand on each hip and Shisui faintly thought '_oh no'. _

Her eyes narrowed. "I've scrubbed more than my fair share of both wiggling brats and petulant soldiers, Shisui-san. Nothing I haven't seen, gaki."

_Oh Kami, oh god-_

Which was how Shisui found himself, buck naked, submerged in an old basin up to his ribs whilst a strange widow scrubbed his matted curls like one would a stray dog.

"Head back!" Ren-san barked, wielding a jug of clean water like Shisui would a knife.

Shisui immediately did as instructed. He'd learned the hard way that, if he wasn't fast enough, Ren-san had no problem dunking the water straight over his hair and damned whatever soap got into his eyes.

His ribs ached like pressed bruises in the hot water, the temperature only just this side of bearable even as his skin mottled red and tingled numbly. His cuts, both the big lacerations and the small scratches, prickled uncomfortably. The heat wasn't good for him in this condition, the exhaustion like a physical press on the slump of his shoulders. The adrenaline that had seen him functional for over twenty-four hours was finally ebbing away too. His eyes struggled to focus, his grip no doubt fumbling, and the emotions Shisui had carefully sealed behind his ANBU professionalism creaked dangerously under the strain.

Ren-san eventually deemed his hair acceptable, handing Shisui a small wooden comb to redo his bead braid, before bustling off to reheat water so that Shisui could rinse himself.

Fingers numb but managing on muscle memory alone, Shisui unravelled the small plait, a three-strand that incorporated hair as it progressed. It was Shisui's go-to because it kept Obito's bead, the size of his thumbnail, close to his scalp and resting just above the upper curve of his ear. The hair plaited was the longest Shisui had, his corkscrew curls on the top coiled relatively tightly and, from his temples to his nape, the rest trimmed shorter. Both to stop his hitae-ate from ripping his hair and to clearly expose the bead.

Obito's bead fell into his palm and the teen, one hand rising to rub soap into the matted strands, cupped it carefully under the water to clean it too.

His resolve cracked, like a much-abused dam that just… couldn't hold back the torrents any longer.

A crack in the hull is all it takes.

Emotion burrowed deep into Shisui's breast, like a clenched fist around his staggering heart and a lead band squeezing around his lungs.

His breath hitched.

And Shisui wept bitterly into the dirty bathwater.

It was all too much, the stress of recent months and the years of grief, the uncertainty and helplessness. Seeing his brother's face and not knowing if it was a stolen visage or some cruel twist of fate. Shisui couldn't even dare to consider that Obito's face _hadn't _been stolen.

What was worse?

To be haunted, taunted, with the face of a loved one. Or for that twisted, monster to potentially _be _them.

And, if it was the… the _latter_ (-Shisui didn't know how to even formulate the thought-) then why would… _he… _want him dead?

A sob choked in his throat and Shisui thought, eyes swollen and vision barely making out the amber bead held close in the cradle of his palm, he would be physically ill.

The patter of slippers was all the warning he had before a bucket of water was upended over his shoulders, flushing suds across his skin and plastering his hair to his head.

Shisui sucked in a sharp breath but, before he could pretend nothing had happened, a dry, calloused palm cupped the curve of his shoulder and Shisui froze. A hand entered his vision. "May I?"

Dark eyes dropped to the bead he still cradled.

Back to the hand.

And slowly, hand faintly trembling, Shisui placed the precious little orb of glittering glass into Ren-san's hand. Those strong fingers were immediately at his temple, combing out the longer tuft of hair and re-plaiting the bead into place with a far more complicated flourish.

Shisui gulped and stared at the milky water.

"My wife was a blacksmith," Ren-san started, low and soothing, and Shisui subconsciously relaxed. "She was on a supply run ten years ago when rival Shinobi, hired to cut the mine off from the merchant routes, attacked. She died in the crossfire."

"'m sorry," Shisui mumbled at his knees.

"Ten years, Shisui-kun, and I miss her every day." Ren sat back, stroking a thumb over Obito's bead, before nodding in satisfaction. "It's a lovely bead, for sure."

Shisui looked up hesitantly, still feeling so raw, and picked out the orchid shaped ornament hanging from Ren's right ear. "Yours too."

Ren-san's hand on his shoulder squeezed. "I knew she would've loved it."

Without meaning to, Shisui's own fingers rose to brush over his own bead. "...me too. O-," Shisui cleared his throat, sniffing. He thought about how long he'd pondered about what to make to signify his nii-san, how he'd made it himself and included all of his brother's favourite colours.

Shisui remembered the last time he'd seen his brother, tired and oh-so determined. Orange goggles in his head - the first things Shisui had bought him when he'd finally earned his own money, and how he'd told Obito that good ninja could wear whatever they wanted. His smile, huge and bright and endearingly crooked. He was immortalised in his head aged thirteen. _That _would always be his cherished memory of his brother.

"Obito-nii… would've loved his too."

For the first time, Ren's face gentled with a smile, that ached with understanding and the comradeship of a shared loss without pity. "He would be glad to see you safe, I'd imagine."

Still feeling shaky, Shisui managed to squeeze out a tiny smile in return.


	3. Where Do I Go From Here

_The world keeps spinning even if you do not. The thought, that life continues even when we stumble and fall, is daunting. _

_For some people._

_For others, it's reassurance that the world hasn't ended. That it's not their responsibility. _

_That things can change._

…...

**Chapter Three:**

_**Where Do I Go From Here**_

Once Shisui had been appropriately scrubbed clean - or rather, _raw, _to Ren-san's standards -, the teen was presented with a simple shirt and trousers. He stood, a towel hastily wrapped around his waist, and dripped onto the brushed tile floor as Ren-san pulled the tub towards the back door and tipped the whole thing into the poor garden.

(Shisui would've felt bad for the plants unfortunate enough to be drowned in his own dirty bathwater if he hadn't unintentionally absorbed, from brain-numbing D Ranks, that blood was actually a good ingredient for compost. As it was, Shisui tried really hard not to think of civilians pouring vials of blood onto their prized roses. He could never quite get over the thought that roses were red for that reason, even though he knew that was most definitely incorrect.)

Shisui, when it had been explained to him that he was on probation for a month, had figured he'd be assigned a _guard_… put through his paces to assess his worth and… eventually sent on low-risk missions to build up trust and loyalty. What you'd expect, really, considering Shisui was just a Sharingan-activated, civilian-half-raised, Uchiha oops-baby who'd saved the Clan Heir.

Whether Ren-san _had_ received those orders, Shisui didn't know.

He did know, however, that if she had, she was most _definitely_ ignoring them. Somehow, the idea seemed the most plausible.

"Now!" Ren-san declared. "What's this about needed a goddamned Senju to patch you up?"

"Ah-ha," Shisui rubbed his collarbone. "I was… a little banged up?"

"Fainted like a fairy, if Izuna-sama led me right," Ren-san corrected him, tucking a wisp of hair behind one bejewelled ear and narrowing her gaze for sarcastic emphasis. Shisui thought that was a little rich, considering Izuna had floundered in the mud like a landed carp. And who was she to be so familiar! Shisui wasn't used to Uchiha being so… so… _nice._

The teen stared at her in disbelief. "I'd been _poisoned_! And I'd taken an emergency-" _shit, did they have antidote pens here?_ "-err, _herb essence shot_ to try and keep me going. What did you expect?"

"I wouldn't have gotten poisoned in the first place," Ren-san sniffed, pulling a battered wooden stool out from underneath the shelves along the far wall and sitting herself down. In her lap, also retrieved from the shelves, was a box (shoebox sized) filled with a rudimentary first aid kit. "Right," She stamped her foot. "Sit yourself down there in front of me and let me see what we can do."

Hashirama had done quite a bit but- well, he still needed attention. And the last thing Shisui needed was to fuck something up for good. Infections were _also_ out of the question.

"...Shoulder or hip first?" Shisui wondered aloud, still holding his new top in his hands and mentally weighing if it was worth struggling into it only to have to take it off again.

"Neither," Ren-san shot him a look. "Your eyes."

"They're fine," Shisui automatically deflected.

Ren-san narrowed that sharp, flinty gaze. Her eyes weren't black but, rather, a navy so dark that they almost looked it. "The eyeballs themselves, yes. Although…" she held her hand flat and wiggled it, "that's also debatable. But _you're_ missing half an eyebrow and if those cuts become infected - fingernails are the filthiest part of the body, do _not_ question me - then blindness isn't off the cards yet either. Now," she stamped at the ground between her knees again, "sit before I trip you!"

Having a cotton ball dipped in liniment carefully wiped across the cuts, all in various states of healing and some still gritty, was oddly intimate. Something about the closeness, the necessary patience, how Shisui's seat on the cold slate tiles had him looking up with chin tilted so that Ren-san could reach...

He didn't really have any memories to compare it to. Maybe when he and Obito had washed each other's grazed knees after training. Maybe it was a little like when Genma would bind his ribs after a tough mission… Kakashi-senpai with a hand in his curls, so scared of getting close but caring too much to stay away. Tenzo-kun, on a bad day, placing his sleeping kit closer than normal to Shisui's so that their shoulders brushed with every breath.

Maybe when Shisui did this sort of thing to Itachi and Sasuke. A split lip or a cut knee or a cramped muscle that needed stretching. Although he was always Ren-san in those situations.

Unable to keep his eyes up, Shisui shifted the uneasy tension in his shoulders and kept his gaze firmly on the first aid box directly in front of him. The prickles of pain, the alcohol no doubt sterilising the open lacerations, and the throbs when Ren-san had to brush harder to remove dirt warranted no reaction; Shisui barely felt it.

"Is it alright?" he asked quietly.

"Hmm," Ren-san mused low in her throat and, with fingers under Shisui's chin, tilted his head this way and that. "I'll put on a poultice for now but best let the air get to them. No dirtying your face, however, Shisui-kun. And _gently_ wash your face _thoroughly_ before bed and before breakfast." Then, as promised, the older woman reached into her stash and produced a small glass jar of yellow paste. It looked a little like old honey when it thickened at the top of the extra dusty jars.

Shisui said as much and the look Ren-san bestowed upon him in return was nothing short of amused. "That's because it is honey, gaki. Natural antiseptic. 'Course there's a few other herbs in this but your first impression wasn't stupid, so there's that at least."

Shisui pressed his mouth flat, a dimple in each cheek emphasising the jilted expression. "I don't know whether to be pleased or insulted." he ignored the fuzziness of his mouth, leftover from the poison.

"Well," Ren-san packed away her special, _magical_ honey and gestured for Shisui to turn sideways so she could inspect how his collarbone was fairing. "Don't hurt yourself trying to figure it out."

"Ahhh," Shisui sighed. "I thought you only needed me around for the extra hands and limb length… "

Ren-san chuckled, firmly gripping his upper bicep to rotate the shoulder socket, her other hand pressed to the bone to feel for wrong movement inside. "I can't have you brain-dead on me though; a sheepdog who can't gather is more hindrance than help, no?"

"Ouch!" Shisui couldn't help but laugh, obediently raising his arms above his head and then straight out to the side before stretching the previously-wounded arm across his chest. "I didn't think the Uchiha were dog-people!"

Ren-san huffed. "Fine, you can be to me like Madara-sama's falcons."

"Is that my First Errand?" Shisui teased. "Shall I go and fetch a rabbit for supper?"

Ren gestured for Shisui to rise to his knees, which he did, so that she could see to the gash across his pectorals better and have a poke at his battered ribs. "Is that what your real First Errand was?"

Shisui's chuckles faded slightly, the easy banter receding like warmth against a chilly breeze of reality. What was he _doing_, playing nice like this? …He should be more careful. More professional. He cleared his throat. "Ah, no. I didn't really have one."

"Oh? One of your neighbours didn't seize the chance?"

Shisui shrugged. "Nii-san and I had been doing everything for ourselves most of the time anyway. There was nothing special about going about the usual routine just because we were big enough for it to only need one of us to complete."

Ren-san was quiet for a long moment. "...Let me see that ankle."

Wordlessly, Shisui planted his palms against the floor behind him and twisted to slip his foot into Ren's lap. Carefully supporting his heel, she rotated the joint, feeling for bumps and watching for any sign of discomfort in Shisui's face. Her eyes bore into his chin, Shisui's own gaze tipped up and fixated on the ceiling. He dropped to his elbows, arms too tired to hold him up higher. "Anything?"

Shisui frowned in consideration. _He felt sick_. "Nothing but a slight ache. It feels a little weaker."

Ren-san nodded thoughtfully. "Keep off it tonight. Take it easy."

Shisui forced the corners of his mouth to curl upwards. "Do I pass?"

The Tender lowered his ankle to the floor before she got up to tuck the stool away. Its wooden legs scraped slightly on the floor and, from the hook beside the back door, Ren-san pulled out an apron that was swiftly tied to protect her plain burgundy yukata. She turned to offer Shisui a cord before, with a strange deliberateness that had the teen swallowing around some lump of unidentified emotion, presenting her undefended spine to the Jounin. _Look at me, trusting you. _The sentiment was obvious. Shisui didn't know what to think.

"I'll be in the garden."

Shisui hesitated, uncertain as to what she expected of _him._

She gave him a look like he was stupid, visibly taking in the way his shoulders slumped with exhaustion. "Go to bed. The door at the end of the hall, there's a spare room for you. Sleep. I'll bring you something for supper if you're awake for it."

And, with that, she left.

Shisui Shunshined to the bedroom, exactly where she'd described it. He hunted under the bed, checked every cupboard and knocked his knuckles against nearly every surface. The mirror, small and a little tarnished and hung above a bowl and jug intended for washing his face, was not a two-way like had hung in T&I.

He listened carefully. Nothing resonated weirdly.

Ren-san was still in the garden, as promised.

Shisui waited.

…

Tobi didn't come.

_But Tobi didn't come._

Eventually, as the sun moved across the sky, Shisui slipped out of his borrowed house slippers and migrated to the small single futon against the wall. Back tucked against the corner of the wall - although Shisui knew it would do him no good - the exhausted teen gripped the handle of his tantō.

His thumb stroked the familiar wrappings.

His eyes grew heavy. And yet, Shisui didn't dare rest.

_He's coming. I know he is. _

But the day was passing, his own state against him, and Shisui's time has already been borrowed.

Sleep swept in like shadow, silent and inevitable as the tide, and the teen slumped, battered, against the guest room wall still fully clothed.

His rest was not fitful, nor plagued with nightmares nor tense with the bated edge of paranoia pressed to his jugular.

He slept uninterrupted.

There were… vague, half-processed memories of Ren-san entering his room, a Guard by her shoulder and a bowl of broth in her hands. Shisui had the impression that he'd flung himself upright, pitching and yawing in his half-conscious state like it was a ship deck beneath his feet and not a solid house. He had gulped the soup like an animal and dropped back into oblivion before Ren-san had made it back into the kitchen.

By the time Shisui was more lucid during his brief moments of wakefulness, he'd sweated out the last of his near-poisoning.

It had been two days.

He woke, face damp with perspiration and clothes stiff from too many days wear, and stared at the blank ceiling above him.

It was dark.

He didn't know what was worse; that Tobi hadn't come for him whilst Shisui had been a sitting duck or that _Tobi was out there, unchecked and he could be… _anywhere.

Exhaustion tugged at him again but, this time, it wasn't enough to stop the dreams.

_"Sui-chan!" _

_Shisui jerked from his half-doze, hands flying out to brace against the tree branch beneath him as he peered down between the foliage._

_A grin, brighter and happier than the summer sun, which had seemingly faded behind the trees a while ago, greeted him. "There you are!" His nii-san laughed before lifting his hands as though to catch Shisui. "Come down already!"_

_Shisui was already a Genin and he could definitely use chakra to scale or jump down, but-_

_Where was the fun in that?_

_"Catch me, nii-san!" Shisui called back, pushing himself off and away from the branches. He _did _avoid hurting his brother by landing as close to him as possible whilst letting the ground take his weight, his brother's arms immediately looping around his waist._

_"Gotcha!"_

_Curly heads pressed together, dimpled cheek to dimpled cheek, and Shisui had never felt so loved in all his life._

_And then Obito-nii grabbed him by the throat._

_He grew older, taller, face twisting and fingers digging in-_

_"Give it to me."_

_Shisui gasped, as useless and wide-eyed as a suffocating carp torn from the river. "W-w-" He wheezed._

Tobi _leaned in close, noses brushing, and snarled with a face full of teeth and eyes aflame._

_"Everything."_

_Something in Shisui's neck snapped._

Shisui vaulted upright, heaving in great gulps of air as though he'd been deep-sea diving and pushed his breath much further than was natural. His lungs expanded to full capacity with every desperate inhale, the fresh scar across his chest tugging uncomfortably.

He was nineteen, not nine. He was at Ren-san's house, not Konoha. He was in the past, not in a tree taking a nap as he had been a decade ago.

His brother was dead.

The plain sheets were tangled around his legs, half kicked across the floor. His curls were damp, clinging to his temple. His sleeping yukata, which he only half-remembered Ren-san changing him into once his fever had broken, was plastered against the divot of his spine and gaping at the chest.

And Shisui made himself catalogue it all. It grounded him _here_, not _there._

He was shaking, shivering even as his skin boiled alive in the darkroom, the darkness nothing to his burning bright Sharingan.

Every shadow and hidden nook suddenly seemed to hide fear, Tobi's figure or Obito's corpse or a pool of blood from a hundred innocent people.

Shisui braced himself back on his palms and clenched his eyes shut against the writhing paranoia. One breath, two. Hold in for three beats, breathe out for five. Again. Again.

_I'm here. I'm safe. He's not here. He can't get me. _

They were baseless, some outright in-denial _lies_, but Shisui knew that allowing his paranoia to get out of hand was a slippery slope he couldn't rescale easily. He couldn't afford to lose it. Not now, not here.

He couldn't shake the thought of Obito, his _brother_, being Tobi.

On one hand, his face…

But on the other, his chakra and his Mangekyou…

But.

Shisui knew that Madara had replaced his Mangekyou with Izuna's when his brother was on his deathbed. The Elders had said, exposed in confidence to Shisui upon his own eyes' maturement, that that was the only way to avoid the inevitable blindness of the advanced Sharingan. The Curse of Hatred, they'd called it.

The Uchiha were… extremely strict about passing on their precious Dojutsu. Shisui could pass himself off as potential shenanigans because, during the warring era, shinobi were less… well, battlefield one-last-night stands were pretty common. Shisui's mysterious father could've easily kept a secret lover tucked away from the rival clans and usual battlegrounds.

However, in Shisui's time of _relative _peace, the Uchiha did _not _want random Sharingans running around. Now that the Sharingan was a solely Konoha kekkei genkai, seeing someone from, say, Kiri would send both the Elders and the village into apocalyptic rages.

Kakashi-senpai's eye had been insulting enough. Shisui remembered Fugaku-sama almost popping a vein when Sandaime-sama kindly informed him that Shisui had been assigned to Eye-Thief Kakashi's team.

Naturally, Sandaime-sama didn't bother to explain that Shisui was already familiar with Kakashi through his brother, that he thought the comradeship would prove both healing for Kakashi and Shisui, that maybe they could help each other move past the crippling guilt that had left a cavern in both of their lives.

_Was that why Tobi wanted his eye? Because… because they were...and they both had…_

Shisui swallowed hard, scrubbing his hands over his eyes and rubbing hard up into his ruffled curls.

He needed something. Something to _do. _Going back to sleep was a far-flung fantasy at this point, out of the question for tonight.

_What…_ he flung his mind back to the chaos of the past few days before suddenly grasping onto a detail with both hands.

"Eiichi-!" Shisui sucked in a sharp breath. He'd never checked on his summons!

And after Tobi had _ripped_-

Without another thought, Shisui slipped his sleeping yukata off of his shoulders so the fabric was only held up around his waist by the thin robe tie. His back now exposed, Shisui circulated the chakra and pushed forward to summon Takumi-sama. She was the most superior crow… who would fit in the room with little fanfare.

The seal spread across his back and activated.

But, instead of a summon appearing in the customary puff of smoke as expected-

Shisui disappeared instead.

The teen appeared in the middle of nowhere, a rugged cliff to one aside and a tangle of thick greenwood on the other. Roaring waterfalls evaporated into the mist is it poured into the bottomless cavern. The inky sky was shattered with stars and the thin, sickle moon was the only source of light.

"Takumi-sama!" Shisui gasped, pitching forwards as the futon he'd been sat on disappeared from beneath him, into a crouch and bracing his knees against the hard cliff rock. _She'd reverse summoned him! Kami, had Eiichi-_

"Has Eiichi-san recovered?" Shisui demanded. "Has Tobi found a way to the Realm?"

The female crow, about the size of a hunting spaniel with glossy black feathers and a beautifully shiny beak, hopped in place a few times. She seemed disturbed.

"How did you know to call him?" She asked instead, ignoring his frantic concern.

Shisui's heart dropped through his feet and he felt himself pale as his blood drained, even as his heart thundered. _"Is he dead_?"

"Dead? No," Takumi-sama responded. "He is healing fine."

Shisui tipped his head back in relief, tilted up towards the uninterrupted night sky above them. "Oh, praise Kami…"

Takumi quirked hers. "Where did you get that tattoo?"

Shisui's smile, which had involuntarily appeared at the good news, immediately dropped. His gaze snapped back to hers. "What?"

"The tattoo," his primary summon repeated, fluttering her wings in a distinctly uncomfortable manner. Is though she was.. Agitated...by him…

Shisui sat back, a hazy numbness crawling over his mind. _Oh no… please no…_ "You...gave it to me," he admitted in a small voice. And, somehow, he sounded fifteen again, like they'd just met and he'd had to admit he was an orphan without a nest, as Takumi-sama called it.

To her, apparently, they just had.

Takumi-sama quirked her head the other way, as though Shisui was a specimen she'd never quite seen before. "I have no memory of that," she informed him frankly.

Blood roared in Shisui's ears. "Ah."

Takumi-sama dared to waddle a little closer. "But," she spoke hesitantly, seeming to understand the emotional distress her words had caused, "there is no way you could've received that tattoo without it coming from either myself or my kin."

Shisui swallowed hard. "Yourself," he rasped.

Takumi-sama hummed a strange sound that reverberated in her beak and glanced around the cliff edge. "Would you care to enlighten me then? And...tell me your name?"

Heaving a sigh, one part relieved but mainly still… horrified, Shisui pushed himself backwards to sit cross-legged. "Shisui. Uchiha Shisui."

"Naturally," Takumi-sama interjected with some of her old pomp and humour. "I am an _Uchiha _summon."

"Right," Shisui agreed, smiling wistfully.

Her intelligent, bead black eyes blinked in the shallow moonlight. "And how did we meet, Shisui-kun? You summoned me very confidently."

"You're my- you _were _my main summon, Takumi-sama."

"And you address me so formally when we meet every day?" She asked, her chest plumage puffing up in amused bemusement.

Shisui felt his cheeks heat and scratched his prickly neck a little. "Ah… when I first summoned you, I was fifteen and told that the Crows could be very picky so… I was extra polite." He smiled at the memory and Takumi-sama hopped a little closer. "I even brought you dinner." He cast a side-eyed look towards the crow, now close enough for him to feel the warmth of her against his bent knee. "I think you didn't ask me to stop using '-sama' because you liked the attention."

"Well!" Takumi-sama ruffled herself up even more, like an insulted Hime gathering her skirts in a huff. "I don't see the meal you brought me this time!"

"Hey," Shisui smiled openly, so relieved she seemed to believe him. Seemed at least _willing_ to give him _this _normalcy, the only thing he had left. "I'm living it a little hard right now! Give a guy some time to get settled."

"Oh?" Takumi-sama inquired, skipping closer to the edge and peering over the stark drop to the pitch-black water far below. "I do believe I pulled you from a rather comfortable nest in a very busy tree."

Unbothered by her unusual terminology, Shisui shook his head. "It won't be like this for long."

Something about his surety gave Takumi-sama pause and she turned to gaze back at him carefully. Instinctively, Shisui straightened his spine.

"Please show me the tattoo again."

Shisui bit his lip. "It only really shows up for a moment when I'm summoning," he warned. Seeing Takumi-sama's expectant - for a crow - expression, he conceded. "But, maybe if I channel some chakra to it without direct intent?"

His yukata was still bunched around his waist so it was merely a matter of twisting to show his back to the crow and carefully cycling chakra beneath his skin. The invisible seal work - _very _different from anything Shisui had ever seen from Uzushio, the Yondaime or Jiraiya - reacted to the proximity without actually going through with the results. Just as Shisui intended.

Black ink seemed to _pool _underneath his skin, running down between invisible barriers to _fill _shapes and designs. Within two seconds, Shisui's entire back, from his neck to the two dimples at the tail of his spine, was covered.

Across his two shoulder blades, originating from his spine and curving up and across, two folded wings stretched down to his hips. Each feather carefully filled in, the spines and lines between a negative space of clear skin. Then, between them, the summoning kanji in a long line down Shisui's vertebrae. And, finally, around the outside etched a long chain of seal work. It had been… unintelligible to Shisui's gaze when he'd created a shadow clone to inspect himself. The chain came right up to the nape of his neck, across the curve of his shoulder and down along the sides of his ribs to meet in full circle.

Shisui didn't need hand-signs or ink to summon. He hadn't even needed the scroll really; Itachi had kept it.

He honestly didn't even need to strike the ground. His back technically _was _the ground, he could summon midair by channel his chakra with intent into the seal and from the back of his coat would _pour_ summons.

That was more Itachi's style, preferring the smaller crows who could easily escape through his sleeves.

Fighting Tobi, however, had required a _big _player. Eiichi would've been seriously pissed off _and_ put at a disadvantage if he'd been summoned into the back of Shisui's shirt. So, the ground it had been.

As embarrassing as it was, maybe Shisui should invest one day in some open-backed tops? It would be a little… humiliating but if it gave him an edge, did it really matter?

A beak, hard and strangely cold, tapped against the outer fuinjutsu. "Hmm."

Shisui twisted to watch her over his shoulder, half-afraid of the hope slowly rising in his chest. _Please… let me have this one thing. _"Yes?"

She tapped again, rather like a woodpecker on a tree or a squirrel with a winter nut. "Well, it's definitely mine and we've-" Shisui tucked away a slightly unsteady smile, "-seen for sure it's real."

Feeling Takumi-sama move back, Shisui planted his hand on the ground and turned himself around on his ass to face her. "So…," the teen twisted his hands together. "What do we do now?"

Takumi blinked and, with one graceful spring, hopped up to rest on Shisui's knee. "Now you tell me how you seemingly travelled back in time."

The hug Shisui pulled the crow summon into was a weakness of the moment, the crushing _relief _in his chest that someone _believed _him and that he wasn't alone anymore.

Takumi-sama huffed but, hooking her beak over the warmth of her apparent 'new-but-not' summoner's shoulder, let the teen - _her teen_ \- hold her for as long as he needed.

Shisui arrived back in the room just after dawn had broken over the cliff and in time to hear Ren-san knock on the door.

Flustered and breathless, Shisui spared himself an instant to simply _breathe. _

_Takumi-sama believes me. I'm not alone._

Ren knocked again and, even knowing exactly who it was, Shisui couldn't help but jerk upright - tactfully ignoring how his eyes swam around the edges - and gripped his tantō sheath.

"Shisui-san?"

He cleared his throat, dry and scratchy from talking to Takumi-sama for hours. "C-come in, Ren-san."

The door creaked open to reveal the woman in question, this time unescorted and bearing a jug of steaming kettle water. "Up at last!"

A prickle of shame itched up Shisui's spine. _If only she knew._ He shouldn't have slept for so-

"Wash your face, gaki and then we'll see about breakfast, hm?" Ren-san's musing bulldozed over Shisui's visibly poor mood. From the serene yet pleased cast of her smile, this was all done with intent. Right.

"More broth?" Shisui smiled weakly.

"Maybe even a fresh egg roll if you're lucky," she replied, placing a fresh set of clothes on the cabinet alongside another roll of bandages. She turned to peer up at him. Shisui hadn't realised until they'd stood like this, side by side and in simple house slippers, that he was so much taller than her. Shisui himself wasn't short, over six foot with a small chance of growing even taller still. Ren-san, in comparison, couldn't have been more than five foot four. What she lacked vertically, however, she made up for with the strength of her rounded biceps and her calloused hands. "You look better," she declared firmly.

Shisui, scrubbing his face in the warm water and patting it dry with the proffered towel, glanced over. "The cuts look better," he agreed. They did. Magic honey worked, who knew.

Ren-san gazed at him steadily. "You do too."

Shisui's eyes immediately dropped.

"Well," Ren-san finally decided to spare him. "Let's change those bandages and then I'll get cooking whilst you get dressed."

Wordless, Shisui nodded.

Breakfast was quiet, Ren-san informing Shisui that he'd slept off the last of the mysterious poison that 'the _Senju_' had failed to purify from him properly.

At that point, Shisui's update derailed into grumbling about how, if the idiot Senju wanted to heal him, they should've done it properly and how they were all ignorant, blind bastards and someone should've told them to drown themselves before letting them step one foot-

Shisui stubbornly blocked out the memory of _why _the Senju brothers had felt it necessary to get involved.

"What happens now?" Shisui carefully timed his question between Ren-san's inevitable pauses for breath.

Ren-san, washing the dishes she then automatically passed on to the teen to dry, furrowed her brows, bead earrings clinking gently with the motion of her scrubbing hands. "You're to heal up and bide your time, gaki. You up to help me?"

Shisui immediately nodded. Thank Kami, at least he wasn't going to be housebound, but-

"What about… Izuna-sama and the…" he hesitated, "_other _Uchiha?"

The matronly woman sighed and dried her hands, passing the towel to Shisui. "No news on that front. And Izuna-sama isn't… available right now."

The breath froze in Shisui's lungs. Had-

"No, you silly boy-" Ren slapped the towel against his arm as she bustled past him. "He's-" she paused, made a decision, and sighed. "He's on a mission…" She stabbed a finger in his direction. "_Don't tell anyone I told you_. You're still being situated."

Shisui blinked slowly, not sure what to make of this strange woman who was so… unexpectedly vibrant. Rejecting normal, well, _manners _and yet warmer than he deserved… Why _is she taking this chance in me? I'm a stranger. _

Ren-san plucked up a cord from the sideboard and offered it to him.

Shisui took it.

Wordlessly, the teen helped her loop her sleeves safely up and out of the way. She turned back towards him and shoved the bundle of a wrap-around-style farmer's shirt into his chest. "Change into this. Remember; no free shows in the Compound, gaki. First errand; turn over the patches."

Shisui blinked at the sudden turn in tone, material limp in his hands. "Patches?"

But Ren-san was already outside and, slapping a straw hat onto her head, hollered for him to join her in the garden already.

Hurriedly, Shisui tugged the shirt over his head and shrugged the new one over his shoulders, tying carefully at the inside seam and then looping the longer thread around his back. A pair of rattan flip-flop sandals rested just inside the door jam and Shisui hurriedly exchanged his own house slippers for them. They were a little small, obviously made and worn well by someone with smaller feet, but he made it work.

"Take this-" Shisui plucked the trowel she threw at his head from the air, "-and go turn over that soil patch for any potatoes I've missed. Persistent buggers, you'll find them lingering even three plot rotations later."

Shisui hesitated. He hadn't done any gardening since he was a Genin, which he'd been for all of one year before hitting Chuunin at ten.

Ren-san, who had turned to pick up a pair of wire cutters and a wicker basket, gestured at him impatiently. "Well? Day's wasting and I'll work you past dark if you throw away the light hours, gaki!"

Thoroughly cowed, Shisui immediately shot over to the long row of apparently-plain earth. He buried his hands in past the elbow and felt around for any lingering potato tubers. When nothing turned up, he burrowed deeper, past his elbows - _seriously, what a wasted bath time, he was definitely going to be tortured multiple times a day at this rate- _and scurried like that down the row.

It felt awful, exposing the curve of his spine so vulnerably. _What if-_

In an hour, he found four shrunken, misshapen little lumps. Hard, but strangely spongy, Shisui guessed they were the errant potatoes his 'boss' was after.

He sat back on his haunches, uncharacteristically sore. _And _he'd gone through a Gai Special Workout when his senpai was feeling especially cruel and vindictive. His shoulder felt stiff, overused after Hashirama had _just _healed it and Shisui wondered, not for the first time, if this was really wise.

"You done?" Ren-san called from where she was carefully twisting the hole in her wire-front chicken coop back into place.

Reluctant for the next chore, Shisui nodded and rubbed his aching collar bone with dirty hands. He furiously ignored the prickling sensation of being watched, knowing he was in a constant state of awareness but outright twitching would be all the more obvious.

"Good. You can feed the chickens after you've washed your hands. Then it's lunchtime."

Shisui blinked. If it was- then why-

Ren-san caught his expression and grinned, chuckling roughly as she straightened up and patted back some fly-away hairs. "Had to make sure you weren't an uppity little thing. Chicken feed is the covered trough by the door."

_Uppity little_\- "What?" Shisui asked intelligently.

"I don't baby people, " Ren-san grunted. "No point wasting both of our times if a different house would be a better fit."

_She was... testing him? Was that what this all was, the banter and the stories and the chores? Feeding him even half-deranged with a fever and sleep-deprivation? Was this some subtle yet brazen form of hazing?_

Shisui slowly stood and walked on absentminded feet to the outdoor tap where a small jug and bar of soap were sat on the sill for a quick scrub. The water was freezing but clean and that's all that mattered, splattering against the ground as it escaped his cupped palms and soaking his exposed feet. He felt… like he was missing something important here. This didn't feel… like house arrest.

Then again, Ren-san seemed deliberately scornful of time-wasting semantics.

The chicken feed was where she had said it was and, under Ren-san's careful instruction not to overfeed her hens, Shisui used the scoop inside to measure the right amount of grain mix into a clean bucket.

All he had to do now was open up the pen - now that Ren-san had fixed the whole so they couldn't escape like they apparently had last night - and cast handfuls of meal across the yard.

Ren-san's chickens were pretty friendly little things, most a pretty white colour with a feathery black tail and a red 'comb'. A few, however, were a little more unique. Ren-san had bought them from the market only recently; a bit of variety was good for them, she'd declared. Shisui didn't know shit about chickens but okay.

His favourite already was a little grey one, her feathers somehow especially fluffy and continuing down over her little legs like flared trousers.

Ren-san warned him not to get attached. Shisui, a trained shinobi who had eaten enough game on missions to lose his aversion to killing animals of the small and fluffy variety, didn't think it was really necessary but tried to heed her nonetheless. It wasn't like he was gonna be around for long anyway.

The only reason he hadn't skipped the Compound, after all, was that he knew hunting for Tobi would be useless. He had to wait for _him _to come to _Shisui_.

That and he didn't want the Uchiha hunting his trail. That he wanted to see the village grow and flourish again but _better. _That-

Anyway.

But the feed was all gone and all Shisui had eaten for… a good while now was plain, clear broth and that lousy fish in the middle of Kami-knows-where. That was-to-say, he was so hungry his stomach had skipped passed rumbling and catapulted straight into _aching-empty-hollowness_ territory.

Obito and Shisui had lived alone for most of their childhoods. Neighbours gave them leftovers, bought them groceries… but the two had, had to learn to provide for themselves. On top of that, Shisui had made himself useful to Mikoto-hime growing up, watching over baby-Itachi whilst she completed the housework. After… after Obito-nii, Shisui had moved into ANBU corp apartments when he was fourteen and, upon realising he was surrounded by equally traumatised child soldiers, taken it upon himself to utilise those lessons he'd absorbed from his brother and Clan Matriarch and claimed the kitchens.

It had also had the satisfying consequence that Shisui had never had to do his own laundry in return.

Obito had been a great cook, making everything so spicy grown men could cry if they got their hands on a portion of curry.

So Shisui really didn't think a damned thing about it when, upon entering the kitchen for the second meal of the day, he immediately looked around for the rice pot. The sack of rice was also exactly where Mikoto-hime had kept hers, a measuring scoop casually abandoned inside, and Shisui turned to Ren-san to ask how many scoops she wanted to be put in.

Only to find the woman in question leaning against the doorframe, hip jutting out and arms crossed with a bemused raise to her brows.

"O-oh, " Shisui suddenly realised just how presumptuous he was being and flushed to the roots of his damp curls. "Oh! I, I'm so sorry, Ren-san, I just-"

Ren-san raised her brows higher. "Oh no, no, Shisui-kun, go ahead. If you can cook, all the better for me. And, " she leaned forward conspiratorily, "four portions, if you don't mind. I take extra to the oba-samas down the street."

Shishi swallowed, readjusting is grip on the measuring handle. "H-Hai.."

Ren-san noticed his lingering hesitation. "Not too spicy either. The elderly can't handle it as well."

_Well, _Shisui could only theorise as he turned back to the stove, apparently dismissed. The second _test must be not to poison the old dears._

The first having been not flipping out and going full psycho the first two days.

Shisui...could do that. Yeah, this was fine.

Cooking was familiar. Shisui was no gourmet chef from the capital, no Akimichi, but he could make a handful of tasty suppers. After years side by side with Genma, he knew what he could and couldn't eat. A bowl of rice, some broth, maybe some spicy vegetables in a thicker sauce?

The motions were monotonous, not dissimilar to katas but requiring more attention. Shisui didn't have to worry about getting pulled into darker thoughts or losing hours at a time repeating the empty motions with his mind a million miles away. With the simple focus of chopping, stirring, mixing… Shisui was momentarily safe in the middle ground.

"That's enough now, gaki," Ren-san stepped up beside him and wrangling the mixing spoon from his grasp. "I think I've tortured your shoulders enough for one day."

She sniffed the broth pot. "Not bad."

Shisui's lips quirked, the lines of his face softening in a rueful half-smile. "Don't overwhelm me now," was out his mouth before he realised and Ren-san was chortling before he could reel off an automatic apology.

Genma would've loved her. The thought was sobering, longing punching through his chest. _Right… right._

Shisui glanced away from Ren's shaking shoulders. "Shall we box it up?"

Sensing the shift, Ren glanced over at the teen but by-passed forcing an answer out of Shisui and instead gestured for him to reach her down the Bentos. See? Shisui _had_ been right; he _was _a handy pair of long limbs for her disposal.

There were far worse things to be. And for a far less amusing and interesting person.

"Kikiro-oba-sama," Ren-san informed him as, between the two of them, they portioned out the meals. "Used to be the Guard Captain in her younger years."

Shisui nodded along, stowing the names away. Kikiro-sama looked after a number of children whose parents were active shinobi often out of the compound.

She was also, Shisui's mouth twisted, blind from overuse of her Sharingan.

Ren-san continued to chat away, either blind to or, the more likely option, wilfully ignoring Shisui's newest bought of melancholy. "Anzu-oba-sama was once the Uchiha's finest seamstress! She's all but retired now - hands aren't what they used to be - but her old apprentices keep her very well looked after." She carefully tucked the Bentos into a length of insulated kitchen cloth which she then laid across Shisui's arms. "We won't be long - we'll eat as soon as we're back."

Without further ado, Ren-san whipped the apron from her waist and bustled Shisui back through the main hall and out the front door.

It was _insane _to think he'd first walked this way almost two days ago, fresh from the field of Senju and a fight with Tobi. That they'd punched each other through Shisui's Compound at the time equivalent of dawn here-

Shisui's feet slowed to a stop.

How was this even… happening? He'd been-he'd been at breakfast with Kotetsu and Izumo the other morning, waving at Ino-brat outside her Kaa-san's flower shop, and then he'd gone training and-

And the forest, Danzo-

Tobi-

The air in his lungs was like bean paste, stuck and impossible to move and he was _drowning-_

"_Gaki_," Ren-san barked, ripping the Bentos from his arms and, in the space between one heartbeat and the next, Shisui was a dozen feet away. Feet spread, fists regretfully empty but in position regardless.

The Guard from the Gate landed in a ready crouch in front of him, poised to protect Ren-san should Shisui lose it.

_Ah, _the teen thought somewhere in the back of his mind with uncharacteristically grim satisfaction. _I do have a tail._

The street was silent save for the few randomly wandering, absently clucking chickens that scratched at the hard-packed earth.

"Shisui-kun," Ren tried again, peering around Guard-san's shoulder. Her expression was grave. "Breathe with me."

Even without activating his eyes, it was thoughtlessly easy for Shisui to track the natural rise and fall of the matron's torso. Slowly, he forced himself to mimic it but otherwise did not move.

_He's coming, he's cominghe'scominghe'scomi-_

"Shisui," Ren-san called him again, seeming to understand that he… wasn't quite present. "You're in the Compound."

_No. No, I'm not._

"You're delivering lunches with me, Uchiha Ren."

_That wasn't an Uchiha name he wanted. Why couldn't it be Itachi, Mikoto-hime… even little Sasuke-chan-_

_But it couldn't be them, could it?_

Shisui dropped his fists, gazing around the street with empty eyes. "I'm sorry."

The Guard didn't drop her pose. Her eyes remained Sharingan red.

_This isn't _my _Compound_.

Ren-san relaxed slightly and stepped a little closer, ignoring the minute glance the Guard shot her at the movement. "I understand."

She couldn't possibly, unless… unless tim-_time travel _was more common than he'd ever considered. She hadn't lost _everything. _She-

Shisui glanced at her beads, the orchid purple one, before turning to bow low to the Guard. "I'm sorry for acting out."

Finally, the Guard straightened. Her hair fell in a wispy fringe over her forehead, barely even brushing her elegantly arched brows. Her lips were painted red today, matching her Official neck sleeve and her Sharingan, and looked more akin to the poisonous colour warnings of tropical predators than any dolled up Court Hime. She wore no visible bead. A rarity.

She didn't say a thing.

"...I'm Shisui," Shisui dipped his head and then mentally sighed because, of course, she knew her target's name.

"Uchiha Chiasa," Ren-san finally interjected when it became obvious that the Guard-_Chaisa_ had no intention of replying. The next line was addressed to her, "you can return to post now, Chiasa-kun."

_Return to post? What, pretending we all don't know I have a guard now?_

Then the words fully registered and Shisui quirked a bitter little smile at the ground. Let's all act like he didn't just have a breakdown, huh.

Chiasa-san seemed to agree, even though her face didn't so much as twitch.

The tension ricocheted.

Ren-san ignored it. "Shisui-san-" she barked. "With me. Chiasa-kun-"

The Guard turned her head.

"Kindly fuck off before you scare the kid more."

Shisui stared at her. _He couldn't believe…_"Kid?"

Chiasa-san's mouth tightened. "Ren-san."

She didn't say any more than that but… Shisui was a shinobi. He knew a million things that simple word could translate to. _I have my orders… you know I can't do that… he's a security risk… don't make me call a superior… I should take him in… _

The number of times Itachi had used that exact same tone-

_No. No, not now._

Shisui couldn't-

He couldn't break down like this.

_What are you doing? _He wanted to scream at himself, at his own broken heart and his own stubborn mind. _This is the future and none of those tragedies has happened! Those people exist only in _your _mind. You can't afford to have a psychotic break every time something triggers you. Mid-battle or mid-street, you're a fucking sitting duck. You're ANBU; act like it._

But Shisui had no framework for this. Kakashi-senpai had lived one foot and eighty per cent of his _body _in the past and his coping mechanisms were not… recommended. Genma would've told him to go rogue, take out as many bastards as possible and go down fighting. Or, if by some miracle he survived that kind of showdown, immediately retire to start his own village; why wait for the Uchiha-Senju to set the precedent?

But-

Shisui sucked in a deep breath. He was in a prime spot. He had already, in a strange half-cautious and half-camaredic tone, befriended the Uchiha. Or at least, in a way, warmed himself to them. The Senju were intrigued. He had the cards in his favour, knowledge-wise. The true circumstances weren't… ideal. But shinobi had to work under pressure and Shisui had worked with less.

He'd certainly never fed a woman's chickens after waking up sweating out a poisoning attempt and with more scars to add to the collection.

Inoichi-sensei - _he didn't really have a reason to call the man that, having only been Genin for a year but some habits simply… stuck - _would've approved of this direction even if it wasn't the one to have almost fallen into his lap. Shisui certainly hadn't manipulated the field for this particular outlook.

Shisui hadn't had a normal Genin team.

Fresh from the battlefield, the only survivor from his graduating class, ten years old and with the youngest recorded awakening of the Mangekyou… Shisui had been a mess.

Even Obito-nii hadn't been able to truly help. He was just freshly graduated, without even the first activation, and with both teammates and sensei still alive and in-village.

Inoichi-sensei had snapped Shisui up in a flash.

Shisui knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that Inoichi's personal brand of therapy training had seen him through the end of the war. Activating his Mangekyou alone had almost killed him from guilt.

Inoichi-sensei would've said Shisui had a strong start, here.

Shisui steadied his breath and forced himself forward.

That afternoon was a parody of contrasts. Shisui himself made a deliberate effort to be normal, charming Kikiro-oba-sama - with permission, her searching fingers had been delighted to find the deep divots of his dimples, the unusual curls of his hair, the slight upturn of his nose - and chatting easily with Anzu-oba-sama about the beauty of her hand-embroidered (obviously completed decades ago) curtains. Her rice screen, she had proudly declared, had been hand-painted by her granddaughter.

As though to highlight Shisui's intentional lightheartedness, Chiasa-san ignored Ren-san's dismissal and loitered visibly for the whole afternoon they were out. Ren-san may have said that they would return swiftly for their own meal but just getting the ladies to eat around all the talking that went on took a good few hours alone. If the Guard wasn't walking behind him, she was standing in his line of sight, perched on the roof across from him, so on and so on.

It was both a warning and a reminder. _I'm here. Remember where you are and who's in charge. I'm ready anytime._

…..

That evening, Shisui was interrupted from cheating with his Shunshin to gather up Ren-san's chickens by Izuna's arrival.

After having a Guard bore her eyes into the back of his skull, Shisui had managed to relax a little bit under the feeling of being watched. He'd almost managed to convince himself that it wasn't Tobi, fresh from murdering the new Compound of innocents around them.

Izuna had casually walked into the garden and sat on the wooden porch to watch the show.

"Is that how you perfected it? Catching chickens?" The Clan Heir finally asked.

Shisui didn't bother turning, slowly lowering the Cute Grey One into the coop. "If I say yes, will you tell that to Senju Tobirama next time you meet?"

Izuna made a strange chuckle if he wasn't quite sure what reaction he wanted to give to a comment like that. Shisui was simply mildly relieved it wasn't a straight flash to anger. Maybe they could even avoid that route entirely if he kept Izuna feeling thoroughly lopsided.

Unfortunately, Izuna took his snark as the perfect topic opener.

"How did you beat him?"

Shisui sighed. "I already told him, you were there, Izuna-sama…"

A rustle, as though Izuna had rapidly straightened from his relaxed - if watchful - perch. "You _told _that _bastard _the _truth?_"

Shisui stroked a finger down the comb of the Grey Cutie before gently latching the hatch and turning back around. "Should I not have?"

Izuna's face twisted with incredulous anger. The answer in his eyes alone was enough. _Uh, no, you dickhead! _Izuna augmented it verbally anyway. "I didn't think shinobi exposed secrets or private information so brazenly to the enemy."

_Ironic, considering it's you Uchiha who have been the most brazen I've seen. You've not even formally introduced yourself, Izuna, and you've come for gossip as though we're drinking friends. _Even _Hashirama_, from what little Shisui had seen, hadn't been so blatant_. _

Where the Uchiha really this… vulnerable?

They had barely spoken to him and he was being made welcome. A _blind ex-captain had touched his dimples. _

It felt foolish. It felt like Tobi had a chance.

It felt like a poorly executed trick that Shisui, chronically soft-hearted, knew he would fall for anyway.

_Why are you doing this? _He wanted to-to _grab _Izuna and _shake _him.

Shisui closed his eyes and swallowed harshly. Opened his eyes, noted the careful watchfulness in Izuna's gaze and savagely thought _good, be wary of me._

Shisui could kill everyone short of the brothers himself in less than a minute.

But Tobi could do it in _seconds. _

"Senju Tobirama isn't _my _enemy." Shisui rasped. "Where is _he?_"

Izuna didn't need to ask who.

"We don't know," he admitted, biting the corner of his mouth with frustration that bordered on petulant. It was the first time, since his initial impression, that he'd actually reminded Shisui of Sasuke-chan. He burrowed that thought as far down as possible.

Izuna glanced back at Shisui and his eyes turned… contemplative. "...How old are you?"

_He's done being honest...fine._

Shisui propped his uninjured shoulder against the side of the shed. "Isn't it rude to ask?"

Izuna scowled. "We don't stand on ceremony."

_No shit, _Shisui thought. Another difference from what he was used to. Maybe _that _had been the effect of a village, of politics… here, the strong internal system, culture, battlefield comradeship continuous both inside and outside the walls… it made sense.

"Nineteen," Shisui decided he may as well. It wasn't exactly a weakness. The underestimation, when people didn't immediately recognise him - which, duh, no-one would here - had actually proven useful with his fighting style anyway.

Shisui didn't expect Izuna's body language to immediately melt into _smugness, _of all things_. _"I'm older."

Like Shisui had ever cared about that. He'd outranked people twice his age by the time he was Jounin. "Okay?"

An awkward pause. Shisui took pity. "Always the youngest, usually?" Izuna stared at him. "Same here."

Izuna slowly folded his legs up onto the decking and sat crossed. "...Really?"

Shisui took a risk and joined him.

"...Why didn't you finish him off?"

_Nevermind._

Wilfully ignorant in the hope that Izuna would get a grip and stop rehashing this, Shisui clicked his tongue whilst shaking his head in frustration. "I couldn't actually get a hand on him, and then he stuck a knife in my hip before fucking off."

Izuna squinted in consternation and twisted towards him. "I _meant _that White Bastard you managed to catch off guard."

"White bas-_oh_." Shisui jerked.

Izuna visibly gritted his teeth. "_Why."_

Shisui decided that he didn't quite like this turn of conversation but didn't _quite _dare to turn it trivial. "Why what?" He tried anyway, channelling senpai. Just a little bit.

The older Uchiha narrowed his eyes. "Why didn't you finish off that _asshole_ Senju whilst you had him caught like that?"

Shisui looked away and stared at the chickens instead. "I don't believe in senseless killing."

Izuna's shoulders stiffened. "He's a murderer-"

But Shisui wouldn't just let that lie. "We're shinobi. We all are. For every Uchiha death, there has been a Senju death. And for every shinobi death, countless innocents or civilians have died."

Izuna was sat frozen, the muscles in his shoulders trembling with barely-leashed rage. Shisui was… strangely impressed that he hadn't snapped and tried to kill him yet. Izuna seemed to have a hot temper. Maybe it was because Shisui wasn't a Senju. "You can't just…"

Shisui set his mouth and stared off down the garden. He had no business saying this. But he had to try. "How else can you go on? I'm sorry… the Senju haven't personally wronged me, Izuna-sama. I know you've been fighting for a very long time and you have no doubt lost loved ones." He glanced at the smattering if braids towards the nape of Izuna's head, the beads brushing his high Uchiha collar. "But I've lived a life of uncertainty, I've lost everyone I ever loved. And I met Senju Hashirama. I didn't kill Tobirama-san because I had never even met him before that moment. I was never part of this clan, this feud, Izuna-sama." Technically not a lie.

Izuna's hands clenched white in his lap. "Suppose you're right that this feud doesn't involve you, does it?" He huffed, somehow making it sound like an accusation.

Shisui couldn't help it. "And it never will."

Izuna's silence was dangerous. When it became obvious he wasn't going to respond, short of stabbing Shisui, the younger man continued… with caution. "Can't I hope for peace? Surely there must be an end?"

"So, you'd come here, out of fucking _nowhere, _and tell us to, what? Give up? Let those bastards win? Kill without consequence?"

The chickens fussed within the coop, unsettled by the raised voices. This was going nowhere. "Why did the feud start?" Shisui changed tangents.

Izuna opened his mouth indignant… and froze.

He couldn't answer him. Not off the top of his head.

"You've been wronged, every death was a tragedy," Shisui continued, gentle. "But it can't continue, _you _know this. It's not sustainable and it's not right that the children should inherit a war when their parents, _the leaders, _don't remember the instigating reason behind it. Just… something to think about."

Shisui hunched his shoulders, aware he'd most likely stepped way over the line but unable to resist throwing his cards out there. To almost _beg _for a peace that the Uchiha fought harder for, held on stronger too. And maybe a firmer grip this time would see the village forged even more unified than before.

They sat in silence for a while.

Izuna intentionally calming himself, Shisui a silent onlooker. Before them, the garden darkened as dusk settled, the sky bruised purple and pink and blue as a hydrangea bush.

"What about you, Shisui-san?" Izuna finally spoke up.

The teen turned to face Izuna and found him more composed, hands in his lap but a deeply unfathomable look in his eyes. "What do you mean?"

"You don't believe in revenge? The type to consume and dictate?"

Shisui waited.

"But what about the man who was hunting you, the other renegade Sharingan we saw?"

Shisui went cold.

"Why is he so different?"

_Because... he might be-_

"There's a key difference, Izuna-sama." Shisui forced the similarities away. _He had a reason. He had his face-_"Tobi is hunting _me."_

….

A/N- Happy New Year! Bring on the roaring twenties, yo

So I've decided to update every Wednesday (hopefully schedule pressure will keep me on the straight and narrow lol) but life is busy and weird so if a Wednesday comes around and you don't get a notif… please don't badger me for it, I promise I wouldn't be playing coy, yeah?

Have a great new year! And thanks for reading... All the cute comments too haha 3


	4. The Tick Of The Clock

**Shisui was waiting, poised.**

**Ready.**

**(But life doesn't freeze with you)**

…..

Warnings: Descriptions of Violence, Character Death, Infanticide, Murder, Abuse

….

**Chapter Four:**

_**The Tick Of The Clock Strikes As A Blow**_

Shisui slept very little for the next week.

By day, he was a diligent assistant and only ever used his chakra in the most subtle of ways (not only because he didn't want to be seen throwing it around but he couldn't afford to waste a single drop when the traitorous bastard could appear in an instant).

By night, however, Shisui kept vigil.

Between slow, even breaths, carefully moderating the chakra signatures around him with his limited understanding of sensing… it was inevitable when unconsciousness eventually claimed him. When his blinks grew slower and slower… warm and well-fed… slower and… he couldn't keep his eyes open any longer-

_"-a shinobi, " Kakashi-senpai intoned, the amicable hand on his shoulder suddenly inserting forcing until Shisui's tired legs gave out and he slumped down to sprawl against the tree's roots, "knows when to rest and when to wait. It's a fine balance. To stay on your guard is mindful; to push yourself into uselessness, to ignore the body's signs… idiotic at best-"_

-and the teen woke every morning with a crick in his neck and swollen eyes that throbbed in time with his pulse. His skin looked perpetually grey like he was entrenched in some sickness.

He knew he was being an idiot. He knew this was only worsening his position.

He just didn't know how to stop.

_Tobi's killing me, _Shisui internally wondered with a kind of dazed detachment. _He's not even here and he's killing me. With literal suspense._

Bang-Bang-Bang-!

"Morning!" Ren-san hollered a delicate wakeup call, as she has taken to doing every morning at 6 am sharp. Whoever said that Uchiha's were a taciturn bunch had obviously never met one. As it was, the older woman barely even waited for Shisui's automatic croak of acknowledgement before she was breezing through the doorway and into Shisui's room.

The _Guest_ room.

That Shisui was _using_.

At the sight of him, probably just as pitiful as he'd been the rest of the week, Ren-san clicked her tongue in disapproval. Her navy eyes swept his neat sleeping yukata, evidence that he'd barely shifted in the night, before eyeing his dirty curls. "Did you even sleep this time, Shisui-kun?"

She moved further into the room and deposited her offering of a jug of steaming water into the dresser, tossing down a fresh flannel beside it. Shisui rose, straightening the skewed fold of his robe to recover his chest with a cough. "Of course!" He lied, scrunching his eyes up in a cheerful smile that displayed his dimples in full force. Unlike her oba-sama neighbours, Ren-san wasn't affected.

She raised an eyebrow, folding her powerful forearms across her chest. "I'll draw a bath." It was more of a threat than an offer.

Shisui dunked the flannel into the bowl and attempted to scrub the exhaustion from the bags of his eyes, the lines in his skin, the chapped skin of his lips. Her expectant gaze bore into the side of his head. _He really could use a wash_..."Your futon is very comfortable, Ren-san." He tried to appease her again.

Ren shot a glare at the barely-disrupted sheets as though his insomnia was the beddings fault. "So you tell me… every morning."

Shisui smiled blandly, patting at his neck. "Did you say something about breakfast?"

"No," Ren-san corrected him. "Bath."

Half an hour later, wet curls clinging to his forehead and farmer's wrap sticking to the damp curve of his spine, Shisui hunched over the low table in Ren-san's main room. The room itself was tasteful, if sparsely decorated, with a polished wooden floor and delicately painted scroll tapestries of the local fauna hanging down the walls between the windows. Woven rugs, some simple if gorgeous fur pelts whilst others were intricately designed on a loom, were spread everywhere. Along the far wall, in front of the sliding doors that separated the room from the garden porch outside, stood a collection of instruments and a huge bag of knitting.

"Chicken rice porridge and egg rolls," Ren-san announced her arrival, laden with a tray which she promptly set onto the table between them. Then, catching Shisui's eye when he automatically looked up, she jerked her head back towards the kitchen. "Fetch the tea, would you?"

Shisui immediately shifted his feet under himself and-

His Shunshin sparked so quickly, it appeared as though he'd only twitched.

Besides the kettle, he was now carefully depositing beside the pot of porridge.

Shisui paused in picking up his spoon, suddenly feeling a prickling of shyness heat the skin of his neck, and ducked his chin. "Itadakimasu," he muttered before immediately gulping the piping hot rice.

Ren-san, nursing her tea with elbows planted on the table, snorted.

In the past week, the duo had hashed out a sort of routine; Shisui cooked breakfast and dinner one day, lunch the next. And so on. This morning was Ren-san's turn and Shisui had scarcely had time to savour eating a meal he hadn't cooked himself when another unfortunate factor of their rudimentary routine swanned into the room.

"Good morning," Izuna smoothly greeted the pair as if this was _his _home. He was, Shisui internally scoffed, already wearing a pair of house slippers. Shisui had exactly no doubt that Izuna had brought his own damned pair with him. And, judging by the amused looks he didn't seem to be growing tired of shooting at Shisui's own too-small pair, he had flat out refused to squish his own feet into a borrowed pair.

Izuna was the oddest combination of prissy and blasé.

"Morning, Izuna-sama," Ren-san sipped her tea.

Izuna nodded to her and sat himself down next to Shisui, elbows brushing.

"Any new tricks, Shisui-san?" Izuna almost smiled, something childishly keen in his black eyes. As if Shisui had something stashed up his sleeve every time Izuna graced him with his inexplicable presence. The teen would've assumed he was under stricter guard after his little… well, _panic attack_ in the street if not… well, it didn't feel like that.

Izuna was powerful enough not to need to act like an actual guard, hand on weapons and stood to attention. But, something about the funny looks passing Uchihas sent the pair when Izuna followed Shisui around or spoke to him in the street… it felt like Izuna was-

Mayb-

Nevermind.

Shisui frowned into his rice porridge. Maybe he was just too used assuming an affable countenance equated to genuine friendliness. Which was bullshit reasoning seeing as he'd miraculously flourished in ANBU and that field was both as professional as you could get and truly... galling work. After so long under Senpai's leadership, looking under the underneath should've been second nature.

But something about Ren-san's bluntness, Izuna's dignity tempered with awkwardness, the general determination to not only survive but to live that seemed embedded into the very ground of the compound…

Shisui had softened towards it all. Just...a tiny bit.

And it was fucking with his brain.

_What were they playing at?_ He'd twisted the question around and around his brain and was no further forward with it. Conspiracy theories had been developed and then discarded. Shisui wasn't a mental genius, he couldn't whizz through a problem like a Nara, but damn, he'd thought himself a little sharper than _this_.

It didn't help that all the brain-numbing manual labour had given him almost uninterrupted days of brooding. And what social interactions he did have, were all experienced through the lens of the Big Question.

What was he missing?

The constant vigilance for Tobi coupled with his general, from a shinobi perspective, idleness, was driving him slowly crazy.

Well, it wasn't _idle _work. These people depended upon Ren-san - and by extension, for the time being, Shisui - to keep daily life ticking along no matter who was ill or missing or-

_It was idle_, part of Shisui whispered quietly, like a snake creeping through long grass in the back of his mind. _Because it wasn't helpful to his goal. Hanging out a blind woman's laundry took him no closer to finding Tobi._

Shisui didn't even know what he wanted to do once he found him. Kill-?

He couldn't. Because what if he _was… _

But Tobi was too much of a threat, had done too much. He wasn't Shisui's ally by any reckoning. He wasn't even _neutral_. He'd declared himself his enemy, he _hunted Shisui's eyes and his death and-_

Shisui cleared his throat and picked up his spoon again.

Most days after breakfast, regardless of who cooked that day, Shisui and Ren-san would hash out the day's various tasks between them. Yesterday had been the first day that Ren-san had allowed Shisui to complete a job whilst she wasn't present (Shisui had fixed a broken step whilst Ren-san collected in another house dirty laundry for washing). Today, Shisui knew they had to wash the floors of almost every vacant house… which was, out of the eight on Ren-san's street, three. The Compound was certainly much cleaner, almost spotless, and well-tended to than it had ever been in Shisui's life.

Previous life. No, previous-?

"Shisui-san," Izuna interrupted the brooding silence as he helped himself to tea. The teen glanced up to see the Clan Heir nursing a cup of tea, watching him out of the corner of his eye with his lips casually rested against the rim. He didn't look nearly as dramatic as he probably intended.

"Yes?" Shisui prompted him.

"Will you spar with me today?"

Shisui blinked. _Er- _"I don't-"

"He's busy today, Izuna-sama," Ren-san interjected, her teacup thumping down on the tabletop with a little more force than necessary. "He's helping me."

"Can he not take the morning off?" Izuna prodded, quirking his head. The sudden resemblance to Itachi stuck a burning cord of grief through Shisui's chest. His hands shook on his chopsticks and he ruthlessly _shoved _the reaction down until later. "Maybe in the afternoon?"

"I don't think…" Shisui started, sighing.

"He's in _my_ employ for food and board," Ren-san sniffed, popping the extra egg rolls onto Shisui's plate despite the fact he already had three. Maybe she just didn't want Izuna to have them.

Izuna sipped his tea and something about the dangerous poise of every movement reminded Shisui of Mikoto-hime when she was particularly furious at the Elders. "Ahh… and you won't provide for him if he doesn't earn and maintain his keep."

Shisui nodded along, biting into the extra food whilst keeping his gaze firmly fastened on the action. It sounded perfectly reasonable to him. Why he'd done it once; he'd been in a _really_ tight spot on the back end of an infiltration mission and he'd needed to blend into the nearest city for a while. Just a few days playing civilian when his tails were scouring for a shinobi. He'd worked the tables for an evening in return for one of the spare rooms and had scarpered in the morning. It was a poorer area and there weren't any handy, local thugs lounging around to be pickpocketed…. Shisui tried to avoid stealing from innocent civilians as much as he could. It felt so… counterproductive.

To be honest, the system he'd worked out with Ren-san was a decent deal. The woman had had to buy him clothes, he assumed she didn't have spares for a guy his height just lying around, and the jobs she performed weren't for an exact wage income. She'd been generous, all things considered.

Something about the curl to Izuna's normally petulant pout told Shisui he'd missed a subtle, second meaning underlying the verbal dialogue. _Hmm_.

"Sorry, Izuna-sama," Shisui finally interjected successfully. The other man looked severely put out and Shisui had the horrible thought that he just wasn't going to _let this go. _Fuck. Reluctant as Kakashi at the hospital, Shisui continued."...Another time?"

Izuna's eyes glinted with something akin to victory. He was actually _smiling. Oh,_ _Kami_. "I'll hold you to that."

Shisui grimaced internally. He didn't doubt it.

"Well," Ren-san apparently deemed the matter settled. "Time to head out."

Which roughly translated to 'fuck off'.

For the hundredth time, Shisui marvelled that he wasn't stuck in a cell. And then promptly thanked Kami for it.

"I'm due at the Guardhouse anyway," Izuna agreed, draining his cup and standing with a smile. His eyes shot to Shisui. "Swing by when you're next free."

Shisui bit the inside of his cheek. "Sure."

The door shut quietly behind him and Ren-san, unlike Shisui who was carefully keeping tabs on the other man's proximity, didn't waste a second. "What a trouble maker!" She tutted, gathering up their plates and the teapot. Shisui hurried to grab the rest and scurried after her into the kitchen. "Always looking for something new to do, that one. Training all hours of the day and taking more missions than other teams combined!"

Carefully lowering the rice pot into the huge stone-crafted sink - something Shisui had never seen before and was convinced was much better than any of the flimsy metal ones Konoha had had in his time -, Shisui immediately started on the dishes. The water - houses had no running hot water but jutsus and kettles worked for them just fine - was poured in from the vat Ren-san had constantly warming over the kitchen hearth fire. The dish soap was a hard bar made locally from Fire Country Cacti that grew along the cliff edges; taking it in hand, Shisui gouged his thumbnail into the bar and dropped a long, thick shaving of soap into the hot water, rubbing it into nothing and frothing bubbles. Ren-san was still grumbling as she wiped down the stove.

She seemed open…

"Does Izuna," Shisui stared at his hands in the water, "ask people to spar a lot?"

A dishcloth smacked the back of his head before Ren-san was elbowing in to grab the plates he'd washed. "Nosey."

Ah. Not as casual as he'd hoped.

Unexpectedly, given that Shisui had figured Ren-san would call him out further for attempting to unearth details regarding the Clan Heir, Ren-san continued. "Izuna-sama… is passionate."

That was neither a 'yes' or 'no'.

"But asking people to spar?" Ren turned to meet his eyes, dark blue to deep black. "Not a _regular _occurrence."

_Hmm_. Shisui scraped at the large rice pot with a ball of rough twine tightly wound. Did that mean that-

Shisui, discounting the _incident _of their meeting, had spoken to Uchiha Izuna a grand total of six times.

In the span of a week, it was a little unnervingly frequent.

Izuna had approached Shisui for the first time in Ren-san's garden.

The second time had been simple passing small talk in the street. A query on his wound, a comment on what he'd been doing for Ren-san (Shisui hadn't missed that all details were in regards to him and not Izuna). It was odd; Izuna didn't bring up the delicate, _controversial _views Shisui had expressed in Ren's garden and yet somehow, Shisui felt that Izuna was talking to him _because _of it. The third meeting was much the same, although Izuna had arrived upon Shisui's lunch break and promptly helped himself to the teen's tempura (nobody deserved Anzu-oba-sama's sweetness and her hot lunch, which she'd insisted upon as he helped repair a leak in her roof, had been delicious). The familiarity was… odd.

Considering everyone else he'd met, except a few Guards, Shisui was inclined to think it was just… how everyone was. Izuna was definitely the most bullheaded, however, nosing in with little thought to social _anything _and yet squawking awkwardly at the slightest teasing. He was...spoiled and, yet, bratty. Sheltered but a seasoned warrior.

Shisui honestly didn't get his deal but being friendly with the man wasn't _torture_.

The fourth and fifth meetings had been nothing special, much the same as the previous. Besides the bewildered looks of the Guards who couldn't believe their - captain? Was Izuna the captain? Or was Shisui just assuming - Heir was getting chummy with the local fresh meat. They had occurred on the same day though and Izuna had not-so-subtly hinted - meaning he'd all but boldfaced demanded - that he and Shisui discuss weapons preferences the next time the teen was eating lunch.

Which just so happened to be two hours later… when their second meeting occurred. Izuna stole more food. _Maybe it was because, as Madara's little brother, he'd been spoiled into thinking he was entitled to everything…?_

It did turn out that the katana was a traditional Uchiha weapon (the tantō was still, Izuna sniffed, _acceptable) _so Izuna hadn't necessarily experimented with a board range of kenjutsu. Shisui, thinking of the katana Tobirama had also wielded, hadn't quite dared to ask and test Izuna's patience so soon after last time.

The last time they had spoken had only been yesterday. Shisui had been alone, nailing down House Two's (he didn't know the occupants' names yet) new porch steps. Izuna had leapt into the garden, rosy-cheeked and breathing deeply as though fresh from some kind of training, and demanded Shisui, with little finesse, describe how exactly he'd trained without teachers.

Shisui, reluctant but just a little bit indulgent, had 'hmm'-ed and 'ahhh'-ed over non-answers and generic talk about tree walking and running across ponds.

"Spar with me," Izuna had spontaneously come out with.

Shisui had _stared_.

Ren-san's arrival had saved him from that minefield, fortunately.

But Izuna was not to be deterred. Shisui had learned that _extremely quickly._

He'd probably have to fight Izuna eventually.

But, damn, if Shisui wasn't going to drag his feet.

…...

Divide and conquer was the strategy for today. Ren-san blurred through two of the three houses that needed washing, vacant houses with owners dead. They were, according to Ren-san, soon to be inhabited again; in a Clan with such a hard border, empty lots did not stay so for long.

Shisui's only house to wash was the home of a young pregnant shepherd. She raised a small herd in a pasture about half a kilometre beyond the compound. The wool was gathered and refined in her own yard complex, spun into wool between herself and her mother-in-law, and used to make the winter underclothes and blankets for the rest of the Clan. Shisui, stood on her back porch and surveying the two young men she had wash and dye the wool in three-wall sheds, was coloured impressed. It was funny, with a bewildering kind of satisfaction, to see the process of all the things Shisui had taken for granted. He knew how to kill a man twelve different ways with a hairclip but he'd never spun wool in his life. Even his Sharingan couldn't cheat pure learned skill; his eyes might understand the visible process but he would fuck it up no matter what. It was humbling.

The duo couldn't have been older than Shisui.

Despite being four months pregnant, his client was out for the day running errands. So Shisui had the house to himself. Without anyone underfoot (and with only the newlywed couple living there), the teen was able to sweep and wash the floors (some extremely dusty from all of the wool fibres in the air) relatively quickly and just in time for lunch.

He ate his small Bento on the grass outside with the two lads (who, he learned, were brothers, one eighteen and the other sixteen). Curiosity spiked, Shisui couldn't help but grill them a little on what they were doing, examining their purple-stained hands with poorly concealed delight. The guys themselves (Minori was the eldest with his little brother introduced as "Michi - the 'pathway' one, _not _the girly one") seemed good-natured about it all. Shisui got the impression that explaining their jobs was something of a novelty; most Uchiha would probably understand the gist of it just from growing up in such close proximity to all the artisan work around them.

When lunch was over, the duo waved Shisui off with affable smiles and got stuck back into it without fuss. Shisui had agreed to meet Ren-san back at the house.

The weather had been promising all day, a clear if pale sky and milder temperatures. Now though, as Shisui let himself out with Ren-san's mops and a bucket of polishing rags in his arms, the teen couldn't help but notice how the wind turned. Perspiration in the air, that damp fizzle that - running missions with Kakashi had taught him - heralded heavy rainfall.

Shisui glanced down the street and noted all of the dyed sheets, fresh laundry and tanned skins that covered almost every single washing line. The rain would ruin them.

Without much thought, the teen dropped his cleaning equipment and, with the faintest push of chakra, sprinted across the street into the nearest garden.

There was a wicker wash basket, huge enough for Shisui himself to curl up inside, resting by the back door. He snatched it up, spying a small bucket of pegs as well, and all but tore down the line to save the stranger's drying linens.

The air thickened again, starting to spit, and Shisui threw the load under the awning and into dry safety.

By the third house, the rain had slowly started up for real. The clouds were rolling oceans of steel grey and deeper charcoal and something about the energy in the atmosphere felt like a lightning storm. Like most Uchiha, Shisui was fire natured. But, he was a good close second in lightning, and the thrum in his core heralded some serious activity due soon.

The back door slammed open and Ren-san dashed down the steps towards him. The front of her apron was wet from the floor polish. She was wearing navy today; it would, Shisui ruefully noted, be soaked black soon in this downpour.

"Thunderstorm!" Shisui called up the garden, the leather suede skins of his shoulders practically reeking with whatever the fuck they fermented them with. Poison, he concluded. Or soured vinegar.

Ren-san nodded, ripping off her apron to throw over his cargo. It wouldn't help much but - looping an arm around her shoulders - Shisui whisked them both back under the porch.

"I've sent some children over to Kikiro-oba-sama's house to clear her line, so do your thing and run us next door, would you?"

"Sure thing, Boss," Shisui laughed, eyes sparkling, and wrapped an arm around the older woman's waist before-

They appeared in the next garden, Ren-san jolting forward and saved by the band of Shisui's arm, and wordlessly got to work clearing the line.

At the next house, a couple of younger kids (obviously the ones Ren-san had enlisted) scrambled over the fence to carry the basket for them. Shisui immediately jumped over into the final garden, a little shaken by the abrupt proximity of small and delicate potential victims.

He swallowed hard, tugged wet shirts from the line is fast as he could without stretching or ripping them. He had always loved kids...

By the time all of the lines on thei-_the_ street were clear, the rain was lashing it down and blurring the distance. Ren-san gathered the children into her house, like she was shepherding blind cats, and demanded they all change into some spare shirts she has lying around before they caught their death of cold. There were five of them, three boys and two girls, ranging from around seven to Genin age.

Shisui, loitering with a subtly concealed restlessness in the doorway, immediately lunged on the opportunity to escape and ran to find Ren-san's stash of winter blankets in the dry press cupboard.

When the collection of kids were tucked up with tea and huddled by the fire, Shisui suddenly found himself pierced by five curious gazes.

"Who's he?" The youngest, Shisui guessed by size, piped up. His beads were gathered on a leather cord around his neck and he had...collected… at least three from what Shisui could spy from his perch in the far corner. He'd have fled to his room but Ren-san had _insisted _that they all have their tea first.

Shisui could circulate a bit of fire chakra to warm himself off if he wanted. Or, rather, give the illusion of warmth.

Ren-san had vetoed that idea with a fierce scowl, the suspicion in her eyes more than a little surprise. Shisui had never noted any animosity towards chakra usage from her before and the idea itself seemed ridiculous in a bloody shinobi Clan. She'd not even looked at him like that when she'd first met him outside of the Main Hall.

Shisui had crushed his paranoia down as far as he could under that stern gaze. Ten minutes, he promised himself. Ten minutes all but plastered to the far wall of the kitchen and then he could run. If Tobi came whilst the kids were here, he could immediately try and force them both into the 'pocket'. Tobi wouldn't even have to _see_ the kids-

"Oi!" The squirt cried out when Shisui accidentally blanked him. His sister - Shisui guessed, judging by their identical scowls - tugged him further into her lap.

"That's Shisui," Ren-san took pity, shooting the teen in question another hard look as she puttered around topping up their teas. "He's my minion for now."

Shisui clamped his lips on an automatic teasing reply. He didn't really want to make an _impression _on this lot. If anything, this made Ren frown harder, rather like she wanted to throw another dishtowel at him.

Recognition sparked in the older kids faces and Shisui wanted to _whither _into the wall pressed firmly behind him.

"Oh!" The oldest boy cried, lips a perfect 'o'. He couldn't have been fourteen yet.

_Please, no-_

"You're the one they're talking about!"

_Fucker._

"The one who saved Izuna-sama?" Another girl leaned forwards, her raven-black bob swinging forward to brush her jawline.

Shisui cast a desperate look towards Ren-san.

"You're him, right? The one who beat that bas-"

Shisui's tongue knotted, a stone lodged in his throat. He- he-

The first girl leaned forwards, still holding her brother with one arm, to slap the boy's head before he could complete the swear. He hissed and rolled into a ball away from her fists. Leaning back, she eagerly pressed the topic- "Is it true you caught that White Senju's sword with your bare hands?" She demanded, leaning even closer this time as if to catch some secret.

Shisui's back hit the doorframe. He hadn't even realised he was retreating.

The little girl's beads were woven into a messy three-strand braid that curved from the crown of her head, down her back to brush her waist. She looked very, very determined, even swamped in a blanket with her little brother, and, suddenly, all Shisui could see was a stolen tantō arcing through her little ribs. How her eyes would flare wide with shock and pain, then lifeless without that gleam of mischievous intelligence, and she'd hang like a spit pig. Like a doll with its strings cut.

Tobi was going to kill her.

Like those poor, crumpled genin he'd seen in the Compound street. Blood pooling between cobblestones and seeping into earthen roads and-

Shisui's grip loosened, mug dropping to the kitchen from numb fingers, and he ran before the smash could reach his ears.

The world blurred around him with a shunshin, his Sharingan activating to the first stage to allow him to catch his own movements fast enough.

He twisted, throwing open the front door and raced out in his house slippers, undershirt and lounging pants. Within moments, he was once more soaked through.

The Compound blurred around him between one heartbeat and the next-

And then the wall loomed before him and Shisui-

Shisui hesitated.

If he ran, Tobi wouldn't hurt these people. Maybe. It was a chance he could take.

But he would also be putting yet another target on his own head. Tobi… and then also the Uchiha would be hunting him. The Senju too once they realised he was no longer with the Clan.

And Shisui- he didn't want to leave. He had a-

_Ren-san's impatient but fond expression flashed through his mind._

A friend. Maybe several.

Thinking fast, the teen shifted his trajectory away from leaping over to springboarding off of the wall. He lifted a foot, momentum pushing him upwards and off of the smooth bricks and into the branches of the great oak tree nearby. It was on somebody's land but, scrambling to cast out his senses, Shisui's didn't think anyone was home. Hopefully, they wouldn't come out with a broom or, Kami forbid, an actual weapon.

Without bothering with chakra, Shisui scampered up the tree, shoving himself into the divot between the trunk and an intercepting branch. Senpai had insisted they all be able to climb and fight without chakra. As a man who spent half his missions with some kind of chakra exhaustion, Kakashi had been determined that his team be able to fight at the power level or lower than that of a civilian. He'd even insisted on fighting without senses, without arms, without legs.

The rain, which had eased into barely spitting again, once more grew steadily heavier. The clouds darkened and thickened, the grey light shifting until it appeared more early evening than just after lunch.

Genma had always been extremely good at what he and Kakashi had dubbed 'compromised tactics'. As the team's assassin, one of the best, he could wiggle his way out of impossible situations and Shisui had even seen him kill a man with a _pencil_.

Genma, the assassin. A Tokubetsu without a Bingo Book entry; the brunette had always said that the mark of a good assassin was never getting caught. He was their Second, default Captain whenever Senpai was forced to step back (more often than not because of his Sharingan).

Kakashi, the tracker. A genius shinobi since he was a kid, the son of the White Fang (Obito's hero), and bearing his brother's Sharingan. He'd been a rock, the pillar of their team despite insisting that he was nicknamed some bullshit 'Friend-Killer'. Shisui had been on Kakashi's newly formed team from the beginning, four years ago. They hadn't lost anyone yet.

Shisui himself had been the team's escape artist. He was a dab hand at lockpicking and safe breaking. Between Mikoto-hime with Shisui and Kushina-sama's influence over Kakashi, the two had known enough to scrabble the odd seal arrangement too. Shisui couldn't make one, couldn't even adjust a seal, but he could make out just enough to know if a rupture would explode or concave. Between his Shunshin and his genjutsu, Shisui could pull any and every member of his team from a tight spot. In the past year, he'd finally started to run his own ANBU missions with Tiger's old squad. It wasn't the same. No matter what, between other mission work and what little stability Shisui had between graduating and his Jounin exam, Shisui knew that Team Hound was the team he'd treasure for the rest of his life.

Tenzo-kun had been their capture factor with his wood release. He was also frightening with taijutsu - Genma's other-half in that, the assassin having been on the same Genin team as Gai - whilst Shisui and Kakashi covered kenjutsu. However, in many ways, Tenzo was the heart of the team. As an ex-ROOT operative, it might've seemed ridiculous to label his fellow nineteen-year-old as the team's emotional support but… there was something about Tenzo's rudimentary understanding of bonds and emotions that cut through all the bullshit. If Kakashi was in a particularly dark place, Tenzo could tell just as well as any of them. However, unlike Genma - and to a lesser extent, Shisui - who had learned after being brutally shut down numerous times, Tenzo didn't give their Captain a wide birth. He sat down beside him, fiddling away with a block of oak to see if he could manipulate 'dead' wood, and-

Senpai never pushed him away.

Sure, Genma and Shisui could get the team smiling again around the campfire. Genma with his own brand of sardonic humour and Shisui with his own stupidly stubborn optimism that even he was self-aware of to note. Kakashi was also understatedly funny, mostly if you were in the know to see how he acted out in public on purpose.

But Tenzo saw things clearly. The bare, uncomplicated bones. Sometimes, he was flustered, unsure how to react, but it was all so _endearing_.

He and Shisui were the same age and, seeing as Tenzo didn't know his own birthday for certain, they'd been treated relatively the same.

They'd been close.

And-

Shisui wanted to see him again. He wanted to drop down beside Tenzo at a campfire, rest his head on a bony shoulder and ask him what to do.

Shisui, who'd faced everything with a quiet determination and resolution to smile at least once a day… He _needed_ Tenzo.

The rain poured harder, chilling rivers running down the back of his shirt and the divot of his spine, sticking his trousers to his curled up legs. The dull pounding of raindrops beating down on the rooftops, the ground, the leaves surrounding him.

The distant rumble of thunder, the echoing crack.

No lightening yet.

_The rain was torrential. Coverage was completely meaningless, their thin ANBU shirts plastered to the curve of their crouched over spines, their trousers and sandals as saturated as if they'd swam in the Naka. _

_The only noise was that of the rain, splattering on the canopy of leaves around them. Thrumming wetly into the marshy undergrowth. Pinging softly off of their body armour and porcelain masks. _

_Hound-taichou was circling the perimeter. Jackal, his short tail of brunette hair turned black and dripping down his curved neck, was reorganising the senbon he'd liberated from their target's corpses._

_Shisui, now Monkey, stared down at his own blade._

_It was polished to perfection, treated and sharpened. Almost as though it was new. Untested._

_As though he hadn't just-just slaughtered-_

_Cat sat down beside him, their bare shoulders pressed close and sticking. The other teen's back was slumped with exhaustion, his hands bare and scrubbed raw. Tenzo tended to kill nowadays with his wood release, using it in all manner of unique ways to try and grasp some real control._

_This mission had called for subtlety. They'd…_

_They'd slit the throats of another lab of Orochimaru's experiments._

_They'd been unstable, many of them already dead from unspeakable malfunctions to their hearts or brains or lungs. _

_But they'd still been children._

_And it had torn something inside all of them to do it._

_The mission had been a simple investigation sweep hinged on a tip from Jiraiya-sama. But… the children there, most half-mad and some completely tormented beyond recognition of humanity, had been an unexpected revelation._

_Sandaime-sama had made the call._

_Shisui had used a genjutsu. They hadn't felt a thing._

_It was a tragedy. Shisui felt as though he'd been branded._

_"Where is the line?" Shisui whispered to his tantō. Mikoto-hime hadn't gifted it to him for the slaughter of innocent children._

_Tenzo quirked his head, soaked brown-black strands shifting wetly across his clavicles. "I…" he hesitated. "I hope they're free now."_

_They'd been tormented. They'd known nothing of-_

_Shisui's own life had been hard. But that had also been tempered by sunlight and love, friendships and laughter and belonging. Simple pleasures of good food and nice clothes and birthdays and festivals. _

_Those children had only ever known the cold walls of their prison, what food they could find, and the pain of their warped bodies. _

_They hadn't deserved any of it. Shisui wouldn't wish such an existence on his enemy._

_Slowly, as though he wasn't quite sure what he was doing even as he acted, Tenzo rested his head in Shisui's shoulder, forehead slotting in against Shisui's jaw._

_"Are you-" Shisui stopped. 'Okay?' was a stupid question._

_Tenzo didn't move. He didn't have to say 'they were like me'._

_Shisui had seen the corpse in one of the labs. A baby speared through by a tree root, his body warping around it as if the explosion of wood release had been an inverted extremity. For all they know, it could've well been. _

_The lab had been sealed. They couldn't tell how long he'd been there. He could well have been, in a way, Tenzo's older or younger brother._

_"We'll be home soon," Shisui spoke aloud, as though willing the fact into existence. They didn't know how long Jiraiya would take to meet them._

_Tenzo moved slightly closer. "Yes."_

Shisui heaved a shuddering breath.

It was even darker now, the thunderstorm in full sway around them, and Shisui's chill had devolved into bone wracking shudders.

He should… go back. To the house. At this rate, he was flirting with pneumonia. Had he fallen into some kind of trance? So lost in his own mind and his memories and his fear.

With numb, stone white hands, Shisui patted himself down. From the creak of his knees and the rock-hard tension in his lower back, he hadn't moved at all since climbing up here.

…...

His house slippers, soaked and squelching, were a total loss. Slinking inside and gently closing the front door behind him, Shisui was forced to abandon them directly by the welcome mat and continue on soundless bare feet.

It was probably evening, sometime around dinnertime Shisui gathered. It was difficult to tell considering the terrible weather and Shisui's… lost time.

He was still soaked so Shisui crept towards the kitchen where he was sure the fire would dry his clothes quickly. Earlier, he'd left his clothes from this afternoons drenching. If the water was still hot, maybe even a cup of tea to chase the chill-

But the kitchen wasn't empty and Shisui, frozen guiltily in the doorway, wished he'd thought to flare his chakra to check.

"And where have you been?" Ren-san didn't turn around but continued to darn a hole in a sock by the fire. The low embers washed the room with a dim amber light. A pot of soup was steaming on the hop and the children were long gone.

Shisui bit back the childish desire to remark that she wasn't- wasn't his _mother. _

_She's my watcher,_ Shisui's mind whispered. _She's supposed to keep me on a leash. _

"I remembered something," Shisui lied. The warmth, even as the fire burned low, washed over him like sinking into a hot bath.

Ren-san paused in her work before, with a kind of slow deliberateness that curled unease in Shisui's belly, turned to gaze at the teen over one shoulder. "And it had nothing to do with the children? You were spooked like a cat and a sparrow."

Shisui straightened, falling a little into his stricter professionalism. "I don't know what you're talking about."

Her face twisted and she cast her sewing aside, throwing it to the floor beside her stool with low simmering anger. Shisui mentally backed up a little more. "You're running from them. Why? They're _children._"

Something sour spread inside his mouth. "Does it affect my suitability here?" He quirked his head. "Then it's nothing."

She flashed her teeth in a mockery of a smile. "If you're scared of children, then yes, that _is _a point of concern-"

_She didn't understand. She didn't know a damn _thing. "Afraid _of _them?" Shisui demanded. He loved kids, he loved when Itachi and Sasuke had been little and there were kids running in the Compound. That was the _point. _He choked out something that only partially resembled a laugh, shaking his head and ripping his dripping shirt off and onto the clothes horse before grabbing up his stiff, dry top. "I'm scared _for _them."

"Are you a dangerous man for them?" Ren demanded in that low, furious tone.

_Yes, but not like you're thinking. _"You know I'm being hunted-" his words were muffled by fabric as he harshly jerked the new shirt back over his head. "I can't put innocents at risk for when-"

Exhaling harshly as the collar came down over his nose and stuck to his cold, clammy shoulders, Shisui met Ren's gaze with hard eyes.

Her lips twisted with disappointment. "You're not on borrowed time, Shisui."

_What do _you _know? _

Shisui stepped back, jaw clenched and mouth flattened in a grim line. These people… they don't know anything. They didn't see the Clan brought low. They couldn't possibly grasp the threat Tobi posed. Ren thought Shisui was an idiot for not sleeping, for sniffing every meal and scanning everywhere they went. For avoiding children, who could do easily become hostages or collateral to Tobi's savagery.

He shook his head slowly. "What would you know about _anything?" _

He stepped back into the hall and closed his bedroom door behind him with a low snap.

He didn't sleep at all that night, grasping his tantō until the wrappings cut red marks into his hands and staring blankly at the dark room before him. Sometimes, his mind wondered if he could almost make out Tobi's emerging figure in the dark.

A flash of his Sharingan confirmed that it was...nothing.

By the time the predawn hours had drawn in, the dark sky was gradually smoothing out to the deepest dove grey.

Wordlessly, Shisui rose from the futon and slipped his abused (but now dry) house slippers back into his feet. His clothes smelled of rain and damp but, considering his spare change was still abandoned in the kitchen, Shisui wasn't in a position to fuss.

Ren-san's barely-there, undeveloped chakra signature was steady and thrumming low. Still asleep.

With all of the sneakiness and subtlety Shisui possessed (which was quite a lot), the teen crept about the house as dawn slowly painted the sky a dull lavender that eventually blurred into an apricot pink.

All the while, Shisui washed yesterday's laundry. Then, after hanging them out to wait for the morning's first light, the teen let out and fed the chickens. He prepped the ingredients for a hearty breakfast and lingered longer than he normally would when preparing Bentos for lunch. He was used to the daily chores, of his own life and the ones here now, and it couldn't have been past 4 am when Shisui was done.

As quietly as possible, he filled a bath and washed. He pulled his clothes into the bathwater first, scrubbing away the lingering mossy smell before carefully reaching beyond the rim to drape them on the grate by the fire.

He… he shouldn't have yelled at her.

He lathered up a flannel and scrubbed at his shoulders, the scab across his chest and the annoying half-peeled ones littering under his eyes. He figured the scar in his brow would stay, even if the hairs grew back alright. Cut skin was funny like that.

He was just pouring fresh hot water into a jug to cool a bit before he rinsed, when the soft pad of house slippers reached his ears.

_How did she always catch him in the bath…_

He swallowed, forcing himself to keep acting normally as his watcher slowly stepped into the kitchen.

The scrape of the wooden stool on the tiled floor and a warmth settled behind him, within reach. Yet, she didn't touch him.

"I'm sorry, Shisui-kun," Ren-san eventually murmured. A fortifying breath. "I was worried about your reaction to the children. We have a… younger majority of Clan members and the look on your face…"

She trailed off, the light clink of glass hinting that she was fiddling with her bead earrings. Shisui hadn't seen her without them yet so for her to wear them, even so early and still dressed in her sleeping gown, was no surprise.

His reaction… she must've marked him as a flight risk. The children had triggered him in ways she was to look out for, she'd just been trying to find out his intentions…

A hand picked up the jug of clean water, the others fingers just grazing his soapy curls. "May I?"

Shisui nodded. Cleared his throat again. The lump there was familiar by now. "P..please."

Ren-san carefully poured, her free hand a barrier on his forehead to encourage the suds to wash backwards. This was the second time she'd done this. The atmosphere felt… fragile.

Shisui, for the first time in… a long time, felt like a child.

The water flowed through his hair again, pouring through the black strands and down his naked back. The direction of the water tilted, careful fingers ensuring the space behind his ears and towards the nape of his neck was completely clean. Shisui's breathing deepened. Her fingers lingered. And she spoke into the silent room, broken only by the crack of the fresh logs on the fire and the drip of the bathwater. "I should be thankful," she murmured slowly, "that you have been so… conscientious."

Shisui closed his eyes, lashes brushing his cheeks with his jaw tilted up and throat exposed. Tobi was his burden now.

"But," Shisui's eyes cracked open a little at the uncharacteristic hesitancy in her voice. "Shisui… you should know that the Clan is _strong_ and they will fight with you. Especially against that...that _kin betrayer_."

His mouth opened but no words emerged. Emotion struggled high in his chest, eyes blurry until he blinked and the warmth cascaded down his damp cheeks, now cold from the escaping heat. _A_ _week, _he thought desperately. _How can you say that after a week?_

How could _Shisui _want to _believe _her after only a week?

"You can't know that," he rasped instead.

Ren-san hummed, stretching to the side to place the big jug down beside the bath. "I'm sure. Clan is Clan and we take our honour very seriously… But that probably means little to you, huh, kid. The proof is in the pudding after all. But… _if,_" she stressed the word, "the renegade comes back for trouble, the Clan won't let anything happen."

_No_, Shisui's mind whispered. _It meant far more than nothing, her word._ The thought was quiet, almost ashamed. Definitely terrified. He ignored the twinge of hope. _That_ was dangerous, potentially disastrous. _Too soon, far too soon._

"But I can say for sure that I would not stand idly by. And," here her voice seemed to twist with resigned incredulity, "neither would Izuna-sama."

Shisui couldn't resist the rueful smile at that before her other words sank in.

_She's just a civilian_, Shisui recoiled in horror, twisting in the bath away from gentle hands to stare at the hardy, _untrained_ woman who had taken him in. "I don't want anyone to get hurt."

He thought about the Coup, how it had broken his heart to think of turning his eyes on his own Clan. But to _save _them… for peace-

But, with Danzo's true colours revealed, was the twisted illusion of peace _worth_ it?

Shisui never wanted to kill another child, no matter how risky, again. To see them slaughtered in the street. He didn't know how but-

A smile, twisted with something unknown, quirked Ren-san's lips. "Why didn't I expect you to say differently, hm?"

Shisui didn't reply.

The Tender pursed her lips, wet hands hanging limply between her knees and dripping occasionally into the cooling water. "Fine," she ruefully conceded in his silence. "Avoid kids. But," she frowned at him, "no more running away. You live here now, Shisui-kun. You're allowed to start acting like it."

Shisui's chest _ached_.

He had nowhere to go, except to follow the nonexistent trail Tobi had left behind. Even if he found him, there was no going _back._

Shisui had loved his team with all that he was. The village with all that he was.

But he couldn't go back to the graveyard of his Compound. To the village that, no matter how much he loved and was devoted to, was rotting at the roots.

Here… staying here meant that Tobi couldn't return either. Staying here meant that all of those tragedies existed only in Shisui's mind. He could change things for the better.

The Clan, no matter the variety of attitudes towards him, wasn't just going to let him _leave. _This _was _his home now. As soon as he was cleared for duty, he was going to be racking up mission pay for somewhere to live. He'd _have _to build a life here.

He just had to bring his heart and head around to the idea.

…..…..

The next morning, it became _painfully _clear that Ren-san hadn't quite put Shisui's reactions of yesterday behind her.

He was supposed to be under her watch for the time being, after all. He hoped she hadn't gotten any shit for it.

The lengths of her revenge were soon made all too clear when, after a misleadingly - if a little quieter - peaceful breakfast, Shisui stepped outside to find Izuna waiting with the Guard Chiasa-san on the porch.

Oh_, _fucking _fuck-_

Izuna was smirking, like the cat who ate the fish, swiped the canary, got the cream _and _didn't get caught. It tugged at his natural pout, curving upwards sharply to crinkle the skin beneath one eye. The aura he gave off, in general, was bizarrely hilarious and yet filled Shisui with dread for the day ahead.

"A free day for training, ah, Shisui?" Izuna skipped the usual greetings to wallow in his success as quickly as possible. "Ready to hit the training ground for our spar at last?"

The door closed behind him and Shisui closed his eyes in resignation. "Aren't I supposed to be working today?"

It was both a consolation and a worrying point that Chiasa-san looked just as reluctant.

"You are!" Izuna agreed. He paused, patting the katana at his waist like an Inuzuka might their faithful partner. "I hired you."

Oh, good Kami, Shisui was supposed to be helping a Tender, not have his presence put up for sale. _Just what did he offer Ren-san… was it another victim to order about_?

Yikes, was _that_ why Chiasa-san was-?

The Uchiha training ground was a large field on the other side of the Compound. Judging by the smells and the sounds, the Forge and kiln were almost next door to the wide space where Guards scattered about going through their katas. Probably useful for having broken weaponry seen to immediately but concerning if things got out of hand or a little… ground-shaking.

Ren-san had dumped his weapons pouch (Shisui always stashed his tantō scrolls on his person) outside the door this morning after them. So… at least he was properly prepared. Somehow, the teen didn't think Izuna would risk Shisui escaping by letting him run out of sight to find his things

When Izuna suggested they warm-up and then start with weaponry, Chiasa shifted uneasily.

"I don't think that's a … great idea, Izuna-sama," Shisui argued, casting his eyes about the field warily.

Izuna's nostrils flared with a put upon sigh. "Why _not_? We both use the blade in a battle so it makes sense that we take full advantage of such a training opportunity. Here," Izuna tagged on when he grasped that Shisui was really digging in his heels, "we can even use smaller aerial weapons too? So you prefer senbon, kunai or shuriken?"

Shisui glanced pointedly at the clearing around them, the Guards he had no doubt were eavesdropping. "I don't think that's a great idea."

Izuna flapped a hand, undeterred. "Don't mind them. We are obviously here to train, just like anyone else. Chiasa-san will vouch for your intentions."

Shisui chanced a glance at the taller woman, who's face still hadn't shifted from the unhappy grimace she'd worn at the house. Somehow, he doubted she'd be enthusiastic in her defence of him.

Shisui forced a grin. "I kinda have to mind, Izuna-sama. And," he tried a different angle, "what happens if Madara-sama or someone comes across us fighting? They'll assume I'm an enemy trying for a lucky shot." A _perfectly _reasonable argument.

"Shisui," Izuna boldly dropped the suffix and the teen didn't have the heart to pick _another _fight over it. Izuna was exhausting. And never to be swayed or put off. _Tenacious little fucker_, Shisui remarked ruefully to himself. "No-one will think you're an invader. You're just a little notorious. This is a _training ground_." He emphasised slowly.

"Oh, and me throwing weapons and knives around is gonna be peachy?"

Izuna's expression could only be described as 'are you really continuing with this?"

_Yes_, yes, Shisui _was_. Because he didn't want to get _assassinated_ for something that was _Izuna's idea._

"I'll ref," Chiasa abruptly spoke up.

Obviously, she was just as sick of the circles they were chasing as Shisui was. Unfortunately for him.

"It's settled then," Izuna glowed. "Kenjutsu first," he ticked off his fingers as though all was settled. "Then Taijutsu... then Ninjutsu and - assuming you're still conscious-" _proud, wasn't he?_ "Genjutsu to finish off."

Sighing, Shisui leaned down to begin his stretches, the ones Mikoto-hime had drilled into him and he'd continued with every single morning since. Opposite, Izuna went through his own set, whilst their sparkly new referee heaved a put-upon sigh and went to go ask a few sparring pairs to move back a little. Naturally, this only stopped them from working entirely and they gathered a small crowd.

_Great, _Shisui grimaced. He'd always been a little private about his training habits, what exactly he could do. It's why he trained in the _woods. _Away from _people. _

"Ready?" Izuna straightened, tucking a strand of hair brushing his cheek behind one ear.

Shisui followed him to standing, rolling his shoulders that were still a little stiff from last night. Nevermind that he was currently running at hour 25 awake. Everything was just a little… fuzzy.

Like having a beer. That kind of warmer filter that descended across the senses. Nothing to worry about.

Shisui unsealed his tantō holder, slinging the leather across his chest (thankfully just missed by Izuna's sword) and fastening it firmly beneath his left armpit. He rolled his shoulders, letting the weight settle like a familiar friend around his neck. Sometimes, when he worked too many missions back to back, he felt less balanced without it. "Ready."

Chiasa glanced between then, just the roll of her eyes from side to side, and peeled on of her gloves off.

She raised it, dropped it. "Kenjutsu. Go."

The glove hit the floor.

And Shisui _moved._

A ribbon of silver, mirror-bright, darted through the air to collide, ringing, with a long blade for a bare second.

Shisui leapt, twisting his weight up and around. Landed. Parried.

Slash, slash, uppercut- _duck!_

It was a dance of two, of four, of one.

Izuna was stronger, his style more vicious and angry. Every motion in his style was intended to kill, the main body of the blade pressed into soft stomach whilst the deadly edge gouged down into the vital veins of the upper thigh. He wasn't the powerhouse Madara was rumoured to be but Izuna had been trained by his brother, had strived to stand beside him, and the strength and command of every movement spoke of that.

Shisui couldn't fight a dragon with a toothpick.

But he could slip between its grasp.

Shisui's speed saved him, had he weave between vicious swipes like incense smoke curled through the air. His tantō deflected, rather than bullied down on the larger sword, upsetting Izuna's balance and grazing small but stinging cuts to his knuckles that bled between clenched fingers and made his grip more difficult to maintain.

But Shisui wasn't on top form, wasn't against just anybody, and a narrowly sidestepped swipe saw a long if shallow, gash trace red up his forearm.

And _that _was why ANBU wore greaves.

"Time!" Chiasa-san called. Her Sharingan was activated, clearly determined to police their (Shisui's) every action. "Taijutsu."

They both froze, pulling back a scarce few seconds to remove their blades, and resettled just as Chiasa-san once more called "go!"

A sweeping kick lashed out, intending to force Shisui upwards.

Feeling rather contrary - no doubt channelling his team a little again - the teen leapt _forwards _instead.

His hands darted out, fisted a handful of material and, using his momentum, pitched them both into a roll that saw Shisui land on top with knees firmly planted restraining Izuna's arms.

Visibly shocked but all but bristling with competitiveness, Izuna hardly faltered before grabbing Shisui's ankles by his hands and forcing them upwards, upsetting the teen's balance. Shisui barely lifted a handful of inches, palms planted and then baring his torso down to crush the older man's neck in an oxygen lock, slipping his forearms tight against his spine-

But Izuna had managed to scramble his feet under himself and, no doubt supplemented by chakra, shoved them both back and round-

Shisui rolled into a handstand, swinging his lower body around in a vicious double kick, even upside-down.

Izuna kept low, sweeping at Shisui's wrists in another kick with a grin bursting across his face-

Only for Shisui to push himself into another jump, curving to bring his ankle down in a ruthless dropkick he barely darted back from.

A breath.

And then they were in motion, jabbing punches and twisting across the abused grass as two blurs, one a deep purple, the other a faded blue.

Most blows missed but the occasional hit landed, the dull thud of flesh on flesh not even pausing the fight.

Izuna sidestepped a punch, retaliated, and found a fist buried in the nerves of his thigh. The muscle crumpled, the limb immediately protesting the ruthless abuse, and the next punch brush uncomfortably close to his ear.

Shisui… Shisui was so _fast._

The thought intruded, unsettling, and Izuna was forced to leap back and cede ground in order to get his head back on straight again.

The spar continued on for another two minutes wherein Shisui, defending against a vicious haymaker, skidded two long grooves in the rain-softened earth and Izuna was forced to rely more and more on his fists over his legs. Kami, but Shisui's punch had aggravated the nerves.

"Time!" Chiasa stopped them again, eyes flicking quickly to Izuna's leg. His jaw clenched, pride pricked. "Ninjutsu… go."

Eyes narrowed, Izuna immediately flashed through hand-signs and breathed a long stream of cherry-red fire across the field. Using the flames as cover, he darted closer and activated his Sharingan to the first maturity, fists poised-

Shisui wasn't there.

And then two hands were grabbing his ankles, pulling him down, and Izuna only had time to marvel at an _Earth-wielding Uchiha _before he was pulled under.

Shisui wasn't a ninjutsu expert and going up against Izuna with fire seemed more like a pyromaniacs nirvana than a viable battle tactic. But-

The issue on Shisui's end was that, whilst the _Head-Hunter Jutsu_ was a great surprise card owed to his Senpai, Shisui wasn't skilled with earth. At _all_. Where Kakashi could scurry away quickly from practice and Tenzo-kun could actually eject himself from the ground and to safety, Shisui was still...down there.

Izuna had just joined him now.

The Jutsu had softened the earth around the teen, making it easy for him to push through it, akin to fine sand.

Fortunately, Izuna was still trapped up to his neck in solid ground and mud.

Unfortunately, Shisui had been gripping his legs and, feeling the hands responsible quickly letting go of him, Izuna improvised.

And twisted a wrist between the hard bones of his ankles.

It almost hurt Izuna as much as it throbbed painfully in Shisui's hands, tendons creaking together like sparks of lightning. But, friendly spar or no, Izuna was by no means a graceful competitor.

Shisui surfaced, using chakra to pull himself upwards, and took a moment to marvel at the pulse-throbbing of his suddenly delicate left wrist bones. "_Fucker-_"

"Time!" Chiasa called for the third time.

"That was anticlimactic!" Izuna growled, only his neck and up visible.

Shisui slowly rotated his wrist. "You tried to break my hand-"

Izuna's eyes narrowed dangerously. "You're earth natured?"

Pausing in his mournful examination of his hand, the teen glanced up. Snorted. Something about Izuna's grumpy little head stuck in the ground lifted his humour. "Pfft, no. That was just a surprise move to throw you off."

Izuna's lips twisted at that. "Are you going to get me out now?"

Shisui couldn't help but smile a little, flicking through the signs with a little more care than usual for his sore hand. "I don't know, can I see a healer for my wrist?"

The ground shifted and Izuna immediately twisted, wrangling his arms up and pulling himself free. A few metres away, Chiasa took in his condition, glanced at Shisui with her Sharingan still very much activated, and slowly turned to retrieve her discarded glove.

"You're...good."

Shisui's eyebrows quirked, looking back up from feeling his wrist bone. "Hmm?"

The older man scowled again, rolling his eyes like he was sick of Shisui's bullshit. "You're good. Fast…" he cast Shisui a measuring look from the corner of his eye. "You didn't use your blurring effect."

_This was a spar, you don't approach it with shit like that. The after images were a side effect of him throwing his chakra around in a serious battle, impressions that lingered in his Shunshin. In a spar-_

"We weren't doing Genjutsu," Shisui deflected, a little uncomfortable with that demanding gleam in Izuna's eyes.

Of course, just to spite him, his answer only made that interest burn stronger. "So-"

"That was a good spar, Otouto," Madara called, stepping into the clearing with a cautious smile lingering in the corners of his mouth.

…..

A/N-

me all week: you have time to write hahaha

Me yesterday: has there ever been a bitch dummer than you?

Me today: but what if I WORD VOMIT MYSELF BACK ON TARGET

Honestly, this concept of an update schedule is just to see if I can trust myself to actually work to a deadline. University taught me otherwise but, I figured, writing Shisui comes from a place of joy so it should work better, right?

Me, 11pm last night: don't push yourself to meet the schedule… timezones are constructs… it's just for yourself this structure anyway…

I am my own devil on my own shoulder sigh. Anyway, it's still Wednesday for many of you and so it DEFFO counts as a win!

Anyway, thanks for reading!


	5. The Two-Way Street

_And, to think, Shisui had always been considered the leasinterestonally constipated of his team._

_Maybe the dimples had been misleading._

….

**Chapter Five:**

_**The Two-Way Street**_

"Shall we have that wrist seen to?" Madara quirked a thin brow, only to purse his lips when Shisui and his brother did nothing but gawp up at him.

"Ma-Madara-sama-," Shisui swallowed, getting his feet under him and still cradling his wrist as he sketched a bow.

"He never bows to _me_," Shisui heard Izuna grumble behind him as he heaved himself upwards only to stagger to the side when his thigh threatened to buckle.

"Oh, c'mon," Shisui rolled his eyes, slinging his uninjured arm around Izuna's waist to drag him forwards. "It's not like I _stabbed_ you."

"Tell that to my leg," Izuna parried back. "The adrenaline is gone now-!"

"Baby," Shisui laughed, dimples in shadow.

Izuna perked up. "I'm older!" He declared, as though he'd dropped a full house in a poker game to win the Big Pot.

Shisui, having played the part of both Otouto and Aniki, didn't have the heart to burst his bubble, simply flicking his eyes back to Madara before adopting a more… respectful tone. Stories of the older Uchiha had been… varied. And Shisui really didn't want to come across as inappropriate or disrespect. "Where is the healer, Madara-sama?"

The broader man stepped aside to lead them. And wasn't that _bizarre, _to meet a man even bulkier in the shoulders - Shisui was broader than most but still quite thin, not unlike Kakashi-senpai (which helped to mislead in recent months for missions), and taller on top of that, although Mikoto-hime had insisted he was still a teen with time to come into his own. Madara was like a house. A house of solid muscle. Honestly, he looked a little like Hashirama, although the Senju Head was a good half-head taller, and Tobirama had a similar musculature but more streamlined (ha) for speed. Izuna was thin too, sinewy like Genma had been. More subtle. Which was a _joke _considering Izuna's bulldozing personality.

"This way," Madara raised his brows, gesturing further back towards the long Guardhouse. Shisui didn't ask why he hadn't seen the healer upon his arrival here; his injuries had been seen to by Hashirama already… and he was an unknown - why waste medical supplies or a healer's chakra on a potential flight risk?

Inside the longhouse, Shisui couldn't help himself from twisting his head this way and that, trying to take everything in. Izuna, who had insisted that _yes_, he really _did_ need help being hauled to the healer, grumbled from the jostling.

The hall was extremely well lit, a long row of windows on either wall beaming with sunlight, just underneath the lip of the roof beams. The space itself was lined with supplies, from racks of kunai and wire to spare, easily replaced, pieces of armour. Then, in the back half, rice screens surrounded emergency hospital beds. It wasn't the ...sterile environment that Shisui was used to. But the lack of electricity, running hot water and showers… Shisui wasn't out of his depth. A Konoha ninja could easily live in a tree for the rest of their life; a few more modern amenities wasn't an inconsolable loss.

Still, Shisui was wondering over surgery.

Did they operate in this environment or was there a special room in another location? Was this even the real healer's station? Another red herring?

"Shisui-kun," Madara led them to the back of the hall, where an Uchiha was carefully reorganising a shelf of bandage rolls. "Tomo-san is our resident healer here." Shisui carefully filed away that Madara hadn't called them the Clans' healer, just the one here. Interesting. "Tomo-san, Shisui-kun and my brother had a spar with some slight… repercussions."

Tomo was one of the shorter Uchiha, a little taller than Ren-san if not the same, with their hair trimmed neatly to the shoulders and kept away from their face by a crimson bandana. They had a hoop looped through their lower lip and a no-nonsense expression. Honey-brown eyes - some of the lightest colouring Shisui had seen on a full-blooded Uchiha - met Shisui's and Tomo-san lightly inclined their head. "What seems to be the issue, Shisui-san?"

"My wrist is a little delicate," Shisui extended the aforementioned joint with a mild grimace. "Izuna-sama caught it between his ankle bones."

The healer hummed, accepting the offered wrist in both hands and gently turning Shisui's hand this way and that. Their touch was cool, both in chakra and temperature, as though they'd only just washed their hands in icy water. "It's nothing serious, just the tendons protesting a little." The mildest flare of blue-green chakra and Shisui blinked.

He- well, he'd never _met_ an Uchiha healer in his time. The most common healing techniques at the hospital had been those made wide-spread by Tsunade of the Sannin, Senju techniques, so it would make sense for him not to be so familiar with other methods. But-

Watching the pale blue, almost turquoise, chakra seep through his bones and steal away the pulse-like throb, Shisui couldn't help but wonder why the heck the Uchiha had given up on their own style.

"There," Tomo-san released his wrist. "Be careful, it will prove tender for a few more days whilst the tendons readjust to the foreign chakra invasion."

Shisui blinked. He'd never heard of that before but- he internally shrugged. A new _technique, new rules_, he guessed.

"Now," Tomo-san turned to the Clan Heir - and wasn't that _weird_, to be healed before Izuna? Maybe, Shisui concluded uncertainly, it was a kind of skewered guests-first policy? - and gestured for him to settle down on the nearest bed. "Thigh?" They asked.

"Sucker punched right into the outer muscle," Izuna grumbled in agreement.

A pass of that aqua-green palm, this time burrowing fingers slightly into the thick muscle, before Tomo-san pulled away. "It's just a deep bruise," they confirmed, frowning lightly. "Not much force behind the blow, I would say, but it was a shock and so your muscles clenched accordingly. Stretch it out tonight and tomorrow morning and see if a mark still appears."

Shisui bit his lip as the healer retreated to their desk, which was apparently the sign of dismissal. How… casual?

The attitudes here were still...bewildering.

"Let's move out," Madara accepted the dismissal without question, spreading his arms to hussle the two younger men back outside like a particularly large bird. Maybe an Ostrich, the one Shisui had seen in that Princess film that one time. He hadn't been paying a lot of attention, suffering through having his ruptured appendix out and the film was pure background noise.

"The roof?" Izuna quirked a brow, the expression unnervingly like his brother's. When Madara nodded, the younger immediately turned to Shisui and, grabbing his shirt, leapt upwards and onto the slanted rooftop of the longhouse with a small burst of chakra.

"Kami, don't _do _that!" Shisui yelped, hopping back half a meter as soon as their feet touched down.

"Oh, don't whine," Izuna scoffed hypocritically, seating himself on the raised spine of the roof and patting the space beside him. With far more grace (because he wasn't being dragged), Madara leapt up to join them and sat beside his brother, expertly avoiding Izuna's pointy elbows with a scowl.

Then, as one, the two turned to Shisui on Izuna's other side.

A thrill of foreboding dripped down Shisui's spine.

"Your style…"

Shisui raised his head. Around them, the streets directly below and throughout the Compound in general, the day ticked by with purpose. There were the two brothers, Minori and Michi, scrubbing out fleeces on the lawn a few streets over but just visible from this perspective. Children scampered across the dry-packed earth, seamstresses dusting their looms and a group of potters were collapsed under a big oak tree nearby, soaked with sweat and clay dust and tearing through their lunches with a ravenous appetite. The sun was shining, feeble as it was through the heavy, humid clouds, and Shisui rested his weight back on his hands, quirked his head towards the Clan Head. "What about it, Madara-sama?"

"It's very," Madara gestured with a pale hand, "structured." _Ah. _"More so than I would expect from a patchwork of learning."

Shisui didn't blink, swallow, lick his lips or turn away. Those obvious tells would only weaken his stance, no matter how slickly he handled this. "Some teachers," the teen frowned as if in memory, "stayed longer than most." He could… afford to drop names. Names had no meaning here, their owners half a century from birth, so- "Mikoto...shisou was a housewife. She used to use the tantō to defend her sons when conflicts strayed too close to home." None of this was _technically _a lie. Shisui shrugged, leaning back on his palms. _Where was the harm?_ "She lived in the village for years and she was always fond of me."

Madara's eyes narrowed. "Lived?"

_Ah._ Shisui's eyes slipped closed, jaw clenched, heart aching. _There's the harm_.

His eyes burned beneath closed lids and not from the Sharingan. Opening them again, he quickly averted his gaze to the far wall. His voice was rough. "She died."

Madara's tone pulled a little with what Shisui thought may have been something scarily close to sympathy. He didn't stop though. "How did it happen, if I may ask."

Shisui closed his eyes, exhausted, and couldn't bear to keep them open anymore. _She was murdered in cold blood, possibly by my team or my ANBU comrades, possibly by Tobi, possibly by a Village Elder._

But...Shisui breathed deep, slow and wounded. Always ground in the truth. And Shisui couldn't hide this kind of grief forever, knew it would sour and poison him locked up inside. "She was murdered," he rasped. "So were her sons. The whole village who...who raised us."

Me, he'd meant to say. Had raised _me. _

Obito...could you be-

Izuna finally spoke up, lips parted and eyebrows furrowed. He sounded, and looked, devastated. "What happened?" he breathed, lost.

Madara however, was sharper. "Was it _him_, Shisui-kun?" he leaned closer. Intent. His eyes were so deep, like wells in his face. But rather than the abyss, they felt more like the comfort of security. He was, Shisui realised numbly, being consoled. "Shisui, is that why you didn't simply flee the man chasing you?"

Shisui frowned, wondering where Madara was taking this. "What do you mean...Madara-sama?"

Madara leaned back, a focused expression consuming his face. This was, Shisui realised, the man who half formed a village and led a large Clan. "We have seen how fast you are, Shisui-kun. If-"

"Tobi," Shisui provided, subdued.

"-If _Tobi_ was simply after your eyes, you could've used this skill to flee."

"Not with his transportation," Shisui argued, feeling slightly more awake. The hypotheticals...he could deal with hypotheticals.

"He just appears and disappears though, doesn't he?" Madara theorised, eyes narrowing and emphasising the bags underneath them, the delicate bridge of his thin nose. "So, unless he knew where you were going, he couldn't predict where to follow you to. But… you were fighting back."

"Walking away from a threat that can reassert itself isn't a good policy," Shisui pointed out with false lightness, rather feeling like he was walking a delicate tightrope of devil's advocacy.

"But why fight a superior foe?" Madara immediately returned. He paused. "He killed them, didn't he? Your Mikoto and her sons and the village."

All interest in the how's and the why's evaporated and Shisui was left trying to simply breathe. His lungs were wet sponges. "I don't know," Shisui admitted, raw with honesty.

"You weren't there?" Izuna finally spoke up.

The intrusion, the… interrogation, was not welcome.

It rankled, hackles up, and made Shisui want to _deflect. _Slip away like shadow whilst smiling breezily and-

But...he needed to find Tobi and _hold him there. _Ask _questions _without fear of imminent death and force the truth from him. And for that… he needed the Uchiha to be _aware_. He wanted them to _hunt_ him too.

Shisui licked his lips, ignoring how they throbbed in the air. Forced the words out. Like his own failure to be there, to protect, to stop the tragedy, was branded on his tongue. "Tobi came for me first. I doubt… I'll ever know."

Madara moved to ask, no doubt to wonder at the circumstances, but Shisui was done with laying himself bare. He had a measure of instinctive obedience to the Founders but Madara was also a renegade, the first nuke nin, and the man he was today didn't erase the potential for that madness inside of him. Even Izuna's survival wouldn't console Shisui enough to freely offer up all.

"Have you seen him?" Shisui spoke first, not quite willing to outright interrupt him. He curled his knees upwards, elbows resting on them as another crosswind carried across the angled rooftops and carded through their hair. It helped wash away some of Shisui's lingering grief, bubbled to the surface, and allowed the sharp edge of determined anger to solidify instead. "On patrols, missions, nearby?" Shisui insisted when no answer was immediately forthcoming.

Madara clammed up. Shisui could literally _see_ the way his eyes shuttered, all heart briefly glimpsed at now totally sealed away. His own stomach dropped and he'd turned away before the older man could even begin to start up with his negotiation rhetoric.

He'd opened up a little because trust was a two-way street and he'd thought…. _He'd hoped…_ that, from how surprisingly warmly he'd been welcomed, he would be granted some...some _reciprocation._

He'd never been an infiltration specialist. Shisui cracked the safe whilst Genma fucked around with the client (not always _quite _so literally), Kakashi stood guard and Tenzo was the muscle. That's how he was used to things playing out. He wasn't… he wasn't _good _at revealing nothing whilst robbing blind.

Too much heart, sensei had once fondly declared. Just like his nii-san. Honesty like a cloak and eagerness for shoes.

He'd thought the Uchiha receptive towards Shisui's approach to...well, everything. Thought they'd understand and offer him the _courtesy _of updates on his attacker.

Why….why had he thought this was anything but a prison?

He could leave, Shisui reminded himself quietly. They'd never catch him.

But he needed the shelter and the resources. He wanted to help his future village if he lived that long.

Shisui pretended to glance up and check the position of the sun, now almost directly overhead. "Ah, forgive me, Madara-sama, Izuna-sama," he didn't glance over. "My host is expecting me back for lunch."

Izuna drew breath. "Shisui-"

Quick as a flash, Shisui pulled at his lips, forcing a smile as he whirled around and bobbed a bow. "You'll have to forgive me!" He breezed, and then - just like that - he disappeared in the distillation of air.

After that, the subdued atmosphere lingered for much of the afternoon, like an ash cloud swirling around Shisui's head. Ren-san, welcoming him at her cabbage patch job at her direct left-side neighbour's, attempted to salvage the day Izuna had technically paid for. She had Shisui catch tools when she lobbed them (not bad aim for a civilian). Then, as she raked the earth, she insisted on hearing about the training morning. Shisui, still unsettled and with a sunken rock somewhere in his chest forcefully reminding him that he'd opened himself up only to be used and wrung out for information in a guise of friendliness and shared honesty, finally agreed with poor grace. He ended up demonstrating just the one trick, more a parlour than something from battle - the little disappearing kunai trick he'd- he'd once teased Itachi with.

Dinner was also a little stilted. They spoke in low tones as Shisui prepared dinner, spicy curry hot enough to keep their mouths busy and his red eyes pass-off-able.

He was exhausted and Ren-san knew that so when Shisui excused himself for an early night, she let him go with a quiet smile.

That night, in the silent darkness of his room, Shisui tried to come up with a better game plan. Killing himself from exhaustion, driving himself insane with paranoia, was not sustainable. If Tobi found him right now…

Well. Shisui had skimmed through death's fingers once. He wasn't gonna bet on it twice.

Already the long, long day and the watchful nights were having an effect on him. Eyes swollen and thumping in time to his pulse, dry throat like he'd caught a nasty cold, sluggish mind. It was even worse after the exercise and adrenaline from this morning. Like with two shots of caffeine, there was double the crash.

Shisui sat himself down cross-legged on the futon, actually dressed for bed and with his face still a little damp from an encounter with Ren-san's hot flannel. Hands pressed together as if in prayer and rested with thumbs to his lips and fingers from nose to forehead, shisui sat and tried to _think._

Think clearly, rationally. Like how they were told to do in battle and when planning ahead and-

Shisui was quick, he could toss a few comments around, tongue-in-cheek like, and he could wiggle his way by speed, skill and pure dumb luck to safety. But he wasn't smart. Not like Mikoto-hime was with the Clan budget or Fugaku-sama was with the police station. Not like Kakashi-senpai who could walk past a restaurant once and immediately detail all the customers and meals he had glimpsed at. Like Genma who hadn't found a Sudoku puzzle in the local newspapers that he couldn't finish within a few moments. He was skilled, not _clever._

Shisui who hated maths and had poor handwriting and could never finish a book if it looked like his favourite character was going to die.

People had called Shisui a genius and he'd ways mentally corrected them; he wasn't a prodigy in anything but survival. And any animal, when pushed, could become what he had.

_So don't think of this like it's school_, Shisui blew out a low breath. _Think like it's all instinct._

Okay.

Shisui had shelter, supplies and a potential refuge with the Clan. He even, he was hesitant to admit, could consider a few of the Uchiha allies in a tricky situation. Tobi, for all he knew, only had the clothes on his back and that damned stolen tantō. Bastard.

Shisui could outlast him.

But, the teen slowly sat back to rest the curve of his shoulders against the wall, Tobi wasn't necessarily playing the long game.

He's…

Shisui opened his eyes and didn't bother trying to adjust to the darkness of his room.

Shisui had put himself in a poor way, bent over doing manual work with no-one but a single Guard and a civilian middle-aged woman. He... He'd been a walking target this whole time. Nervous and sleep-deprived and-

Tobi hadn't come. Not a whisper.

If he was looking for a chance, it had been here this whole time. If he was playing a long game, lulling Shisui into thinking he wasn't coming back in order to slip past his guard, there was no reason for him not to have tried before now.

Unless he wasn't here right now.

Shisui wasn't stupid, he knew that going with the Uchiha and staying with them, at the Compound, had made him an easily traceable target. There was no reason why Tobi couldn't camp in Iron country and merge through straight into Shisui's room, granted he knew where that was. He wasn't exactly safe.

But Tobi had, had opportunities and he'd missed them.

What was he doing? What else was there to do but interfere with Shisui or the Clan or the village-

Shisui needed sleep. He needed some sense of security-

_Genma clamped a hand on his shoulder that squeezed dangerously close to his - still tender - new chakra tattoo and chuckled indulgently. "Easy rookie, we still need to secure the perimeter. Once we've done that, then we can get settled and sort out a watch. Remember-"_

"-No slacking, no sleeping," Shisui whispered aloud to his empty room. The house hushed with silence, save for Ren-san's quiet breaths and the tick of the kitchen clock.

Shisui concentrated, circulated chakra to his seal and-

_Poof!_

A small crow, like a puppeteer's silhouette in the unlit room, hopped out of the loose robe covering his spine and down onto his knee. She was small, closer to a sparrow in size than the usual corvid, and was ruffling her feathers after the ordeal of appearing down the back of his top.

"Nari-chan," Shisui hushed her, running his index finger down the curve of her beak and along her spine. "Please, my host is sleeping."

She clicked her beak.

"Ah," he breathed. "I'm sorry about the fuss but I need your help, it's very important."

Ego soothed, the smallest (and therefore easiest to maintain) of the Crow Contract settled herself down, pecking at the teen's fingers until he cradled her small fluffy body in the cup of his palms. The house was cool and Shisui very warm. Her head quirked, beady eyes only just visible by their gleam. A gentle peep.

"I'm on guard for a killer," Shisui admitted, bringing her fluffball form up closer to his chest. "But I need to sleep. Will you stand guard for me?"

A tiny beak nibbled his thumb, chirping again.

Shisui paused. "Are you sure?"

A jab, rebuking.

The teen stroked a thumb down the puffed ruff of that indignant head, humming ruefully. "Ahh, forgive my impertinence, Nari-chan. I would be honoured to be guarded so faithfully."

She burrowed into his hands for another moment before wriggling free of his grip to stand sentinel on the window sill. She managed to remain silent for all of three seconds before she was hopping close to the edge and cheeping about the cold. Shisui huffed, snagging up his discarded shirt and curling the fabric into an approximation of a nest and setting it up there with her. The small crow hopped inside, tugging the garment into the perfect shape with her little beak and peeping a final goodnight when she was satisfied.

Shisui couldn't help but smile. "Goodnight, Nari-chan."

Falling asleep that night was more akin to ceding to unconsciousness than normal rest and, if wetness crept down Shisui's temples and into his hair - _homesick, humiliated, hurt, angered, betrayed, grieved - _then there was no-one but Nari-chan to see it. Shisui, when he stirred early the next morning, felt a crustiness to his eyes and stiffness to his sprawled limbs that spoke of deep and unmoving rest.

In the centre of his chest, Nari-chan clacked her beak and cawed again.

Eyes barely cracked, Shisui twisted his head to peek out at the sky outside and noted that it must've been a little earlier than he usually woke. "All clear?" He rasped, smiling helplessly when Nari-chan cooed and started to preen. She was so satisfied with a peaceful watch, Shisui was helplessly endeared.

It was like a weight had lifted. Such good a solid night's sleep, a trusted guard, the presence of a friend could do. Where, last night, every smile had felt like he was heaving the expression up his face like a half-melted theatre mask… this morning, it was thoughtless to let his lips quirk gently upwards, the anguish of yesterday soothed by the balm of Nari-chan's trust and affection.

He fingered one of the shorter feathers atop of Nari-chan's head, rubbing the oily substance off and scritching under her chin when his faithful little guardian cooed happily at the preening. "Time to get up and at 'em, Nari-chan," the teen whispered, shuffling her off of his chest and into his warm bedding. His clothes, freshly laundered the previous day, were neatly folded on the dresser and Shisui slipped from his yukata into the fresh garments. He scrubbed his teeth resting against the window as Nari fluttered around the room, stretching her wings after hours sentinel. "Can I call you again tonight?" Shisui asked around a mouthful of charcoal tooth cleaner.

Nari hopped along his dresser, puffing up her chest and clacking her beak in a thorough scolding.

Shisui's eyebrows winged upwards. "Uh, what?"

The crow cheeped, shaking her black head and stamping a small, clawed foot.

"Of course I can keep you here!" Shisui half-laughed, half-choked, a little stung that the little madam didn't think Shisui could maintain her summon for weeks at a time if he wanted to, nevermind a few days. Nari-chan was a teacup of a bird and her sensing abilities used nature chakra, not her own or Shisui's.

She cawed again.

Shisui bit down on a smile, dimples popping as he faithfully reassured her that, yes, he would be honoured to be guarded until the threat was over.

Still bemused, Shisui allowed Nari to tuck herself into the furrow of his collarbone, burrowing into the warm skin of his clavicle, before setting towards the kitchen. It was technically Ren-san's day for breakfast and dinner but that didn't mean Shisui couldn't _prep. _He had Bentos to make, regardless.

Nari-chan was very good company, content to snuggle into his neck and cheep very soft stories about the Crows' daily routine (as though, in another time, she hadn't already told him these tit-bits) as he filled the big pot with rice and started chopping the veg. Her stories were lighthearted, nothing to trigger Shisui's memories or melancholy, and the teen wasn't foolish enough to think that she wasn't doing it on purpose. After all, despite her cute suffix, she was well his senior.

Puffed up and smug with the quiet chuckles she'd been slowly drawing out of her Summoner, Nari helped herself to some scraps that Shisui politely offered her between his fingers. The cucumber was tasteless, she declared, and the smoked mackerel too 'burned', but the egg was well-received - she lamented on it being cooked - and the peanuts even more so.

Ren-san woke up and shuffled in on her house slippers just as Nari-chan had started investigating the few grains of rice the teen had trailed across the countertop. He wasn't worried about having her loiter on kitchen surfaces, knowing the Crows to be absolutely fastidious about hygiene, far more than most humans he'd met.

Ren-san, unfortunately, wasn't aware of this.

"_Ah_!" She cried at the sight of the teacup crow, snatching up the nearest rag and swatting in Nari-chan's direction. "The chickens weren't enough Shisui?" She huffed, aggrieved. "You had to befriend the local wildlife. Scat!"

"Ren-san!" Shisui yelped, plucking Nari out of the air when she fluttered upwards in response to the tea-towel assisted assault. "She's my friend! Nari-chan is a _very_ clean crow!"

The bird in question popped her head out of Shisui's gently curled fist and cheeped a furious defence.

"You know _I _know you use rose petals in your bath," Shisui pleaded, "but Ren-san doesn't! You're a stranger, you can't blame her! If someone came into your nest-" a flurry of aggravated chirping "-yes, I _know_ they wouldn't dare or get past Eiichi-san, but don't tell me _you_ wouldn't peck eyes out first, ask questions later!"

The bird heaved the equivalent of a huff.

"See?" Shisui sighed, unfurling his fist when it became clear his Summon wasn't going to maim his host's face. Shaking his head, Shisui turned back to Ren-san and determinedly ignored her gaping. Watching someone hold only half an understandable conversation was unsettling if you weren't used to it. "Sorry, Ren-san," Shisui tried for a smile. "Nari-chan is very clean and very well behaved. I promise she won't misbehave in your home."

Ren-san stared at the fluffball of ebony feathers in Shisui's palm, then at the teen, then back to the bird. "I," she blinked, "I-"

"I made tea," Shisui smiled, half hopeful, half rueful.

"It's too early for this," Ren-san eventually conceded, collapsing into the armchair by the fire and rubbing calloused fingers to her temple.

Shisui cautiously past over the tea, lifting a brow in query. "Is it okay for her to stay?"

Kami, but it would suck to sneak her around...

Ren-san took a fortifying sip before peeking once more at the crow perched on her, well, her _ward's _shoulder. Something in Shisui's expression… possibly the hope shamelessly leaking through, possibly the memory of last night and the night previous... softened the lines of her face. "Oh, very well." Shisui sighed in relief.

With permission to host his Summon (indefinitely), Shisui's spirits for the day rose just that little bit. Nari-chan was synonymous with security. Yes, she was small but, with both her intellect and her sensing, Shisui felt much more comfortable and, dare he say it, _in control _than he had since meeting Danzo.

Unfortunately, as soon as the duo left the house that day, there was absolutely no peace to be had.

Those-those-_those_ _kids_ had obviously seen or heard about how Shisui, _technically_, had won against Izuna in a spar.

The next five days were a _trial_.

Despite his strict avoidance of the Compound's smallest residents, Shisui had accidentally gained something of a reputation.

He wouldn't answer their incessant questioning on his skills but, as he fled, the kids _could _get an excellent preview on his speed.

He also seemed to have an inexplicable sixth sense for their arrival, no matter how sneaky the children tried to be, and would be off in an instant. Given the fact he was usually performing the work of a Tender at the time, if not chatting with the Mi-brothers or the Oba-samas, this made for even more entertaining watching.

Add in his sunny smiles (_not _directed at the children, the _nerve_) and his fluffy pet birdie and the Compound's children were _hooked._

The growing pack of Uchiha children who seemed all too invested in this new game of Catch-Shisui coupled with Shisui's new-found need to complete tasks as quickly as possible to escape was… a downward spiral. The more children, the faster Shisui needed to slip away… the more he ran, the more kids were hooked into joining in.

Within three days, almost all of the children in the Compound knew about Shy Shisui and his Pretty Bird. Children also gossiped like ANBU and each retelling was more and more ridiculous.

By the end of Day Three, Shisui had apparently punched the White Senju into space with lightning bolts and he wasn't moving fast, no, he was _slowing down time_. Yes, Shisui was a rumoured Time Master.

Shisui was very, very unhappy.

_Strike that_, he mentally hissed, burying his chakra so low as to resemble the crow huddled against the cool evening air under his jaw. _I'm pissed._

He'd _told_ Ren-san, he'd explained why he had to be careful-

Considering the violent lifestyle beyond the walls, discounting the half-standstill the Uchiha were currently facing from ongoing feuds, the children should've known better than to try him. Maybe he'd played the helpful card too willingly, been too keen. It was, he reflected ruefully, akin to dangling a feather to a kitten.

Or, in this case, a pack of rabid children.

He was shiny and new and had a reputation. He'd also straight-up snubbed them without instilling the appropriate intimidation.

"What am I going to do…" Shisui moaned beneath his breath, head thunking back against the trunk behind him. He was up a tree, again. This time he wasn't coming down until someone - not him - had told the children to lay off and be appropriately mindful of the target walking around. Which was Shisui.

Nari-chan cawed, the sound reverberating lowly against the knob of his throat.

Shisui huffed a breath. "Scare them? I think I'd get arrested for threatening the Clan's future generation or something… nothing understanding, it least. Not with-"

Well.

It wasn't just the children Shisui was avoiding, if this subject with a little more… subtly.

Izuna seemed to have taken the new change in dynamic poorly if his raging expressions and liberal cursing (despite the children _everywhere) _was anything to go by. Shisui told himself not to soften again. He wasn't some shiny new toy.

But, speak of the devil and-

"What are you _doing?" _Izuna came to a stop at the base of the oak, arms folded and expression twisted like he wanted to sink his teeth into something. Most possibly Shisui's jugular.

Shisui completely bypassed the question. "How did you find me?" His chakra was barely _anything_.

Izuna's nostrils flared. "You're speaking _out loud. _Asshole."

Shisui gritted his jaw, teeth squeezing slightly in a low grind from the pressure. Fuck but he hated speaking Crow. Cawing just sounded awful and his vocabulary was, in Eiichi-san's limited Common, 'appalling'.

"I'll make sure to amend that," Shisui grumbled, at the end of his tether.

Izuna paused, tapping one foot on the spongy grass, and then sighing explosively when whatever he wanted to happen didn't magically appear. Yes, Shisui was in a shit mood. Even crowd-pleasers had to experience the emotional pitfalls… The teen narrowed his eyes at the figure below, determined not to move or ask. He was angry and then angry _again _on top of that because _no one _was doing _anything._

"Are you coming down here or what?" Izuna eventually snapped, unfolding and refolding his arms and ignoring how the sleeves of his training robe became bunched with the conflicting motions.

Shisui resolutely stared ahead, silently popping his collar to protect Nari when another strong gust of rain-dampened wind rushed through the boughs of the tree. It would be a wet night. "So I can be ambushed?" Shisui asked. He purposefully didn't specify by who and, from the dagger-sharp frown marring Izuna's brow, he grasped the slight.

"So we can talk."

Shisui paused.

Swallowed.

Reminded himself that he was on a mission. An adult.

"What about?"

The tense line of Izuna's shoulders relaxed minutely and Shisui grimaced. Was he such a pushover?

"How about you come down first?"

Long-lashed eyes scanned the ground around them, the fences and bushes, the shadows and corners. "...Why don't you come up… Izuna-sama."

In an instant, the Heir was balanced on the branch before him, Shisui's back pressed to the trunk and Izuna carefully astride, fussing with the folds of his garment. Shisui took the moment to sit up straighter.

"Why are you up here?" Izuna carefully asked, head tilted intently.

Well. At the very least, Izuna may be convinced to corral the herds of reckless children. "The Clan Children are far too interested in me for their own good," Shisui admitted, mouth pressed in frustration.

Izuna looked like he was tempted to laugh, snort at least, but knew it wasn't exactly… appropriate. _Good_, Shisui thought stubbornly. "The kids?" He quickly sobered and Shisui was… grudgingly grateful. "But, why? Are they that interfering?"

"Well, yes," Shisui shrugged because they _were,_ he had a job to do and they wanted to see the taijutsu he'd _apparently_ used against the 'White Senju'. "But-"

He swallowed. He didn't want to talk to Izuna about Tobi again.

_Stop being childish, you're ANBU on a mission. _

"-it's more so that Ren-san and I have agreed-" a stretch but not a lie "- that it would be best for me to avoid the children and pregnant members of the Clan when Tobi could show himself at any moment. They could get trapped or, Kami-forbid, used in the crossfire," Shisui elaborated.

Izuna made some aborted motion, jerking a little in place. He didn't reply, staring intently at Shisui as though he'd never quite gotten a clear enough view of his face until now. Bemused, if a little impatient at the repeated silence that reminded him so much of that rooftop mess, Shisui merely quirked his brow and looked back.

"Limit the collateral?" Izuna finally summarised, still staring.

Shisui's brows were inching upwards. "Yes? I've only interacted with the Guards and people my age and older so far. I avoided meeting the Shepherdess and her husband, the expecting couple in House Three, and I only stay for short chats with the Oba-sama's since I met them."

Izuna was still staring.

Shisui was quickly losing what little of his usual patience he'd managed to scrape back. "Look, I thought we were all being responsible here about the target on my back but, if you're genuinely surprised by this, then we need to reevaluate the threat level you perceived Tobi to be." No immediate response. "I'm telling you, that psycho can phase through _anything. _Can you warn off the kids, at least, man?"

Izuna nodded.

Shisui jerked his chin down, sharply, once. Nari had remained completely silent, only moving for breath and all but invisible with her chakra blending into the natural energy around them and her plumage perfectly camouflaged in the darkness of his shirt. Despite that, disapproval radiated from her. Shisui agreed. "Thanks." He was done here. "I'll be heading h-back then."

And he leapt out of the tree and Shunshined to the house.

…..

The rest of the week was eerie, an opposite to the first half in almost every way.

There were no more children scampering underfoot, no more aggravated Izuna staring at his retreating back. No more reason for rabid paranoia.

Shisui, who, by now, had found himself in the habit of tending to Ren-san's chickens at dawn, was not so easily soothed. He'd been flustered and busy and the twitchiness was not something Shisui could seamlessly switch off.

The chickens were a grumpy lot, not morning birds in the slightest, and were so sleepy at dawn that they could barely cluck in disapproval as Shisui gently relocated them to a warm wicker basket so he could clean. Nari-chan, who considered herself the peak of intelligent life, cawed at their misfortune with surprisingly crafty humour considering her own feathers were still damp from her morning bath. Shisui wasn't sure how she bathed every day - he could've sworn that birds needed the oil or something - but he had also been the unfortunate soul sent out to gather rose petals for it so maybe he was biased.

Grey Cutie flapped her wings as he lifted her, those furry little legs wiggling futilely, and he was rewarded with a sharp pinch when he released her into the basket. "Ouch!" Shisui yelped, shaking off his finger and resisting the urge to suck on the pink nip, scowled at the attacker. She waddled off, fluffy bum shaking, and Shisui couldn't hold onto his frown. Okay, but she was still cute.

The teen glanced upwards, eyes catching onto Nari-chan's lazily swooping figure, arcing only as high as the fence and then dipping to graze her talons and wingtips through the dew-wet grass. It was a beautiful morning, it nearly always was, the distant blush of sunrise creeping over the hills and trees. Amber rays growing stronger, piercing through the blue smoke-like mist of the pre-dawn chill. It was late summer now, nearly into autumn, and the trees were just tinting gold as the rising light beamed behind them and almost seemed to frame them like filigree.

Shisui gathered up the handful of laid eggs and set them off to one side in a bowl. Then he scraped up the used hay, heaving it onto the covered compost heap to be recycled back into the earth, and pulled another fresh bale out of the gardening shed. It was already a little used from the last time Shisui had done this. The scent of sweet hay clung to his hands and skin as Shisui carefully layered it into the cubbies and across the floor of the pen. He sat back on his haunches to survey his work, stray blades caught in his hair and sticking to the fibres of his shirt. "There," he nodded, satisfied. Just as mindful as when he'd removed them, Shisui lowered the chickens back inside of the coop, replaced the lid, and let himself out of the large run. Ren-san kept the chickens confined to a third of the garden, conscious of her precious vegetable patch that dominated the rest of the space.

The freezing water of the outside tap had Shisui's fingers smarting but he simply washed away the stray hay, chuckling when Nari-chan relocated to his curls to carefully pluck out the straw that had wound up there, and cupped his hands for a gulp of water.

And then Nari-chan was throwing herself upwards, screeching so loud that Shisui's ears felt fit to burst, and Shisui was ripping his tanto from his sheath-

A sickening familiar blade curved through where his head had been half an instant ago.

Shisui was only wearing his too-small borrowed flip-flops and his feet skidded poorly on the grass. His sword arched upwards, curving round to protect his intestines, and Tobi met him with a jar that reverberated down their tantos.

"Long time, no see!~" Tobi's voice sang, pitched an octave higher than what Shisui knew to be natural.

But Shisui had been _waiting. _Yes, he'd had almost a fortnight and-

_He could play that game too._

"Did Tobi-kun finally crawl out of the hole he cried in?" Shisui fake pouted, forcing their blades upwards and then lunging forwards once-twice-**duck!**

He leapt backwards, keeping his tanto poised across his chest in a fall-back defence. There was something ugly curled in his chest, copper on his tongue and heart thundering.

_Was this terror or fury?_

He couldn't distinguish between them anymore.

Tobi hadn't replaced his mask since the last time Shisui had seen him (_when he stabbed a knife into his-_). His marred face was twisted further into a scowl, despite his higher voice. Some kind of fallback persona, Shisui could only guess.

He could only pray that the bravado was an attempt to shield the older man's potential insecurities.

But, despite the lightheartedness of his 'greeting', it was blatant that Tobi hadn't come to toy with him.

Shisui rolled to the side, ducking another slash that would've completely beheaded him, and coming up just in time to deflect a move intended to split him from navel to nose.

"Aren't you sick of this?" Tobi snarled, pitched low once more as the fighting sped up and their movements became increasingly difficult to follow. In tandem, they both activated their Sharingan.

Shisui didn't have breath spare to reply, vaulting against the washing line post and flipping over Tobi's head. His stolen tantō met him when he landed, scraping long and ugly down his left-hand ribcage.

"Well?" Tobi demanded, advancing. "_Release us!"_

Shisui frowned in complete confusion. _Release-_

_-"What have you done?!"_

_Tobi slamming him into the tree by his throat, nails carving into the delicate tissue._

_"This is all your doing anyway."_

Shisui's eyes flared wide. "No-"

_"Everything that has happened… is your fault."_

"_Yes!" _Tobi hissed between clenched teeth, stabbing at Shisui like he wanted him speared as a fish on a Hunter's lance. "This is _your_ Mangekyou, _your_ illusion-"

Somewhere, in the back of Shisui's mind and with a voice that sounded tragically like Mikoto-hime, he noted that Tobi wielded the blade with a viciousness that couldn't hide the lack of formal teaching.

Shisui clutched his blade so hard his fingers cramped and stared up at his brother's face. "No…"

"_They're not real people, Shisui," _Tobi insisted, ripping his sword free when a deflection buried it almost completely through a fence pole. "You've trapped us here, in a reality that _doesn't exist."_

Shisui slowly shook his head. His face felt numb.

"The Compound Massacre broke you-"

_No_

"So you created a new one to replace them-"

_No!_

"But it's _all in your head."_

They weren't moving now, simply stood in the middle of Ren-san's ruined cabbage patch.

Shisui's chest heaved. "You're lying."

His brother's face creased with sympathy. "You've twisted reality because you don't want to let them go. _I understand_. It's time to break the genjutsu, Otouto."

He'd-

Shisui's mind-

Several things happened at once.

Nari-chan streaked through the air like a dash of smudged ink, wings streaming behind her, to claw savagely at Tobi's intangible face.

In the same instant, Shisui's back _writhed _and shredded his clothes as it seemingly exploded outwards, the huge form of Eiichi stretching out to hang like a plume of ebony smoke over his Summoner's figure. He shrieked, great wings (whole and _healed) _battering the garden around them as the neighbours finally woke and a distant alarm sounded.

Tobi - _Obito-nii - _snarled, batting Nari-chan from the air and ignoring Eiichi's scream of fury. His stolen tantō flashed, arching towards Shisui's neck and-

Madara slammed into the clearing as a meteor come to Earth, his own Mangekyou whirling madly. "_There you are," _he murmured.

…

A/N- congrats to me for keeping to another week lmao. This fic estimated, for those of you wondering, to be about thirty chapters complete.

As it is, thank you for all the wonderful comments and support 3


	6. Land of Fire, Heart of Lead

_Maybe the true Uchiha speciality was a good ol' mindfuck._

_AKA A Show of Good Faith_

….

**Chapter Six:**

_**Land of Fire, Heart of Lead**_

_Madara slammed into the clearing as a meteor come to Earth, his own Mangekyou whirling madly. "There you are," he murmured._

At the sight of Madara's figure, low to the ground and ready to strike, Shisui felt something shift inside of him, deep in his chest. He shouldn't have, he shouldn't but-

The relief was hard to deny.

But he _was _relieved. Backup, blessed backup, that he never thought he'd have again. It felt like having comrades again, that first flash of welcome chakra or muted green flak jacket or the glint of ebony Uchiha hair-

Shisui couldn't feel the ground beneath him, the world seemingly twisting and writhing around him as reality reorganised itself into his worst possible nightmare, and yet-

Madara flared like a fire-bright coal, stoking some hearth inside of Shisui.

"_Madara." _To-_Obito's _eyes burned into the Clan Head's, rife with an emotion too chaotic for Shisui to place. But the _tone_-

"Madara, he _did something." _

Obito seemed to sway in place, as though he'd made to step forward and had reconsidered at the last possible second. Shisui stared, frozen.

"I can't- I can't _find-"_

He knew Madara. He was-

Obito's remaining eye - _the other tightly closed, lid sagging empty where the eye he'd gifted Senpai had once belonged - _strained wide, earnest, as he kept jabbering on. In the low dawn light, the sun still a distant flush of pastels on the horizon, he looked _deranged. _As if he couldn't help himself. "They're not where they said they would be-"

He was talking as though they'd spoken, planned...something… between the two of them. That eerie familiarity, the sudden rush of unexpected uncertainty- Obito was...was looking for _reassurance-_

As if Madara had come to _help_ _him_, not-

Betrayal lanced through Shisui's heart, burning as a blacksmith's brand.

_You're a fucking fool, Shisui._

How long had Madara been planning to backstab him? Shisui subconsciously slid to the side, placing himself equidistant from both men. Madara has promised he'd seen nothing of Tobi and Shisui had _believed_ him. Taken at face value with honest words of thanks for the watchfulness. Madara had been _plotting _whilst Shisui was _puttering _around doing odd jobs- His _murderous brother _had been in contact with the very man who'd taken him in.

_Had Izuna known? Ren-san? Was this the real reason Chiasa-kun had been tailing him..._

Shisui's jaw clenched, teeth grinding, and, with a flutter of chakra, he Shunshined across the garden. Madara tracking him carefully, shifting minutely to face Tobi more directly, but the scarred Man didn't even look at the teen, just continuing with his spiel. Shisui's sandals skid across the wet earth as he plucked Nari-chan's shivering form from the grass, tucking her safely into his weapons pouch between the bandage rolls. His hand paused, thumb lingering over the frantic thrum of her tiny heart. "Unsummon yourself," he begged in a voice he barely recognised as his own, low as a whisper. Nari-chan ignored him.

Her heartbeat thrummed desperately beneath his shaking fingers, so delicate and yet so stubborn.

Behind him, a shadow descended across Shisui's hunched figure and near-silent wings swept dust into the air with each beat, whipping the grass and Shisui's own curls as Eiichi-san hovered protectively at the teen's back.

He had them. He… he had his Crows and-

He didn't _need _anyone else!

"Madara!" Shisui shouted, twisting back to face the standoff - no, the _meeting - _as Eiichi landed directly at his back, wings spread like a great cloak stretching up and up either side. His powerful chest brushed against Shisui's shoulderblades with every inhale. "You fucking liar!"

Madara didn't even twitch, eyes unwavering from the man in front of him. Tobi continued, jabbering on in near delirium about statues and moons and-

Eiichi's wings hooked forwards, a shield of silken feathers that immediately righted him. Protected him. A constant.

Eiichi was real, Nari-chan - _still hurting, still breathing - _was real.

If-If _Obito_ was right, if this _was _to do with Shisui's Mangekyou…

Shisui set his jaw, readjusted his grip on his tantō, and lunched forwards, curving the blade in a upward arc with all the speed he could manage.

_Then_ Shisui _was the one in control here-!_

Obi-_Tobi_ was, perhaps for the first time, properly distracted, mouth snarled wide and eyes unwavering from Madara's Sharingan and-

The Uchiha Clan Head lunged forwards, almost faster than the eye could track but not faster than _Shisui._

The wicked sharp edge of Shisui's blade met flesh and sank through to scrape the bones of Tobi's ribs.

The man immediately launched himself backwards, pulling off of the blade with a sickening slide, but _still _staring at Madara with that awful look in his eye.

His twisted lips opened-

"_No," _Shisui cut him off before anything else could slither out of his cursed mouth. He felt a kind of haze settling into the corners of his vision, a tremble of rage that almost gave way to a bastardised battlefield serenity. Shisui's blade dripped scarlet into the grass. He advanced after Tobi. "You don't get to fucking _speak-"_

He was putting Madara, the bastard, to his back but, seeing as the Clan Head had no problem betraying people over and again, Shisui was willing to put up with a third party for the time being. Tobi was his main priority now.

"I've _ruined everything, _right?" Shisui pushed his lips closed on a snarl, forcing an ugly smirk. His knees were weak. "Isn't that what you said?"

Tobi finally looked at him.

His ribcage was soaking his robe. He'd bleed out soon without medical intervention. And intrusive thought speared Shisui's mind it the sight of it, something he could unthink. Couldn't unsee.

_A slow, drained death… is that how Tobi had killed his Clan? Did they die in the streets, holding their wounds but unable to keep the precious lifeblood inside?_

A fitting death, then, if Shisui was lucky and the wound took hold. Ironic.

"You're angry." Tobi's voice had resettled, deep and thoughtful and far too close to home to do anything but strike agony into Shisui's battered heart.

Tobi seemed to sense this, gathering the scraps of his composure around him like a tattered cloak as Madara's silence stretched on and on.

Like some kind of parasite, Tobi's reviving self-assurance leeched at Shisui's own.

He took another swipe, this one side-stepped, and tugged his blade free of the ruined turf. "You don't-" he panted, "know a _fucking _thing."

Tobi bared his teeth. "You're terrified." And understanding lit behind that cruel gaze. His eye flicked behind Shisui. "_Oh._"

Shisui lunged.

Tobi met him halfway, Shisui's stolen tantō reappearing like a mirage settling into reality. The blades clashed, a frustrating repetition of the earlier fight but this time with an audience. Around them, the alarm continued to wail.

"Well?!" Shisui snarled, ducking under a swipe and twisting a powerful kick through Tobi's shoulder. "Are you with me or against me, you traitorous-"

A fist lashed out and collided with Shisui's left elbow with a sickening crack. Agony instantly lanced up Shisui's arm, his forearm hanging like that of a broken doll, but the teen only gritted his teeth on a scream and tucked the arm as close as he could get it.

Madara was lifeless behind him, reduced to a frozen chakra signature and a stern red-gaze, snatches of engrossed Sharingan visible as the two younger men exchanged blows.

At this, Tobi chuckled, deep and rumbling as a rockslide, chin tucked low despite the flurry of his attacks. His rib wound, despite the severity and sickening amount of blood, seemed meaningless to him. "He's not in this fight, Shisui-kun… I'll do it all myself if I have to."

A trail of premonition, like an ice-cold finger traced down the furrow of Shisui's spine, chilled the haze of the teen's anger. That….didn't sound like Tobi was just talking about killing Shisui...

Tobi kicked Shisui's legs out from under him, following the younger as he fell to the ground, and landed with his knees pinning Shisui's arms. The teen shrieked, broken elbow protesting, and Tobi leaned down with sickening intent. A crackle of chakra, heaving up and poised to strike and _held_, like the fullness of expanded lungs poised before an explosive Great Fireball, and-

Fingers skimmed the delicate, lilac skin of his under-eyes, even as Shisui twisted and snapped his teeth, clenching his core muscles and getting his feet planted and heaving- _getoffgetoffgetaway-_

"Shisui!" Izuna shouted, leaping over the fence with his katana drawn, a gleam of quicksilver in the low morning light. The Uchiha Heir threw his blade upwards, scarlet eyes fixed beyond the fight, and brought it down with a cry.

From above them, there came a roar like a dragon and the sky lit up scarlet.

The column of fire passed through Tobi's form, the shiver of the oppressive heat surrounding his fading figure like an aura. A demonic aura, from Shisui's own _personal _hell.

Tobi's thumbs pressed just as Izuna grabbed the older man's arms, tearing his grip away and thrusting his knee into Tobi's jaw in one smooth transition. As soon as the fire passed, the great shadow of Eiichi's form descended, his wicked sharp beak hooking around Tobi's jugular, like hunted prey hanging lifeless.

Shisui wanted to lie there, breathe and _blink._

He tensed his muscles instead, heaving himself up and away, even as Izuna stepped close to Tobi's captured figure.

"Who are you, _intruder_?" he snarled, sword-edge unwavering despite the utter fury of his tone.

Shisui didn't want to look away but-

He turned and met Madara's eyes. The fire had been his. But why….why had he let him-

Eiichi suddenly screamed, shrill and ear-shattering and, with an echoing clack, his beak snapped shut on _air-_

Tobi's chakra signature faded to nothing, as if he had never been there.

There was a beat of terrible, terrible silence.

Shisui's heart thumped once, twice, and he wondered when it would just… stop.

He stared at Madara and Madara, stone-faced, stared back, as everyone else erupted around them. Behind him, Eiichi cackled angrily in the far back of his great throat, lashing out in frustration with wicked claws and carving trenches into the ruined soil at the loss of his prey.

There was a quiet inside of Shisui. It was a kind of serenity, one part the hush of a decimated battlefield and one part the silent tick of a hospital clock. A sickening twist of humour, an '_of course'_, soured his tongue.

He was, Shisui dimly noted, trembling.

Tobi was gone.

Again.

And Madara…

The thought spun around and around in Shisui's skull, gaining speed and anger and spurring and-and-_and-_

Shisui's black eyes bled into the red of his Sharingan, boring into Madara's even as Izuna snarled and spat and barked a dozen orders at the tangle of guards spread out over Ren-san's garden. As the residents finally poured from their houses, away from the fight, the backdoor of the house slammed open.

"What happened?!" Ren-san demanded with a furious howl, wrapped up in her nightclothes beneath a blanket and with a wicked-looking battle axe in her firm grip. The reactions felt so delayed, even though Shisui distantly recognised that keeping back until the guards descended was an implemented tactic, that Shisui couldn't stifle the whispers of suspicion in the back of his mind. Sharingan spinning, the whole world seemed… hazed. Slow as a bad dream, limbs thick as honey, and Shisui simply stood there and tried to think through the chaos.

Tobi couldn't have been there for more than three minutes.

His arm was on fire, another bitter reminder that Tobi could snap him like a stick at any given time and disappear like smoke. Like he just had done.

And Madara had… Madara had _let him._

"Shisui-" Izuna was gripping his shoulder, mindful of the break, tone imperative and lowly furious. "Tell me what happened, Shisui."

With conscious effort, the teen unclenched his jaw, muscles aching from the strain. He had yet to blink. _Even that felt like a risk now._ "Ask Madara." The honorific was conspicuously absent and Izuna jerked back as though Shisui had slapped him. Bewildered and stressed - _how the Fuck could he play them like this, was nowhere safe, how long until he started picking off Clansmen like the sicko he was -, _Izuna twisted towards his brother. "Nii-sama?"

Madara's stoney expression twisted minutely, a furrow appearing between his brows and something like disgust tugging at his lips. "A lunatic; the man is depraved."

Shisui couldn't fucking stand this. "He knew you," he spat, ignoring how Izuna stared at the accusation. Of course, his br-_Tobi _would recognise Uchiha Fucking Madara but Shisui had meant the description more… personally. The brothers would only understand that manner anyway. Shisui was supposed to be an illegitimate.

Shisui hadn't _lost _his Clan and his Village and his _whole fucking life. _He was some fucking _kid _from nowhere with a goddamned Sharingan and a psychopath on his tail. Shisui couldn't forget the _truth, _afterall.

Unable to compose himself, Shisui snickered, gripped with hysteria even as he shook off Izuna's grip and stepped closer to Madara. He hadn't even moved since his arrival, feet planted like a statue instead of a supposed warrior. A defender of his kin. The teen snorted again, Sharingan swirling lazily. The adrenaline had levelled now, slowing his heart but dulling the throb of his arm. This, this he could work with.

"Like I said," Madara eyed him carefully, noting the metre distance between them and the strange looseness of the younger man's limbs, even broken as one was. "He was obviously insane."

A smile tugged at Shisui's lips, a mockery of good humour. Behind them, Ren-san was approaching, snarling about patrols and the effectiveness of a lethargic alarm response. "Maybe," he conceded, stepping closer. "Maybe he knows more than any of us. He certainly seemed to know more than me, Madara-_sama."_

The Clan Head's eyes narrowed, eyes daring Shisui to disrespect him just one more time. "I've told you, Shisui-_san-"_

Shisui bared his teeth. "_I don't believe you_."

Izuna launched himself across the distance between them, planting himself as the third corner of their triangle, and swiped his blade between his brother and Shisui, as though the steel could sever the tension mounting. "Seriously, what the fuck did I miss?"

"I have no proof to offer you that would satisfy," Madara growled, baring his own teeth. They must've looked like snarling street dogs, Shisui scoffed, feeling the Guards gazes like a weight on his back. "I've never spoken to your so-called 'Tobi'." He paused, Sharingan flickering over the microexpressions of Shisui's face and seemingly grasping what Shisui had failed to communicate aloud. "I wouldn't have allowed him to take your eyes."

Time seemed to slow with the admission, the Uchiha around them suddenly gripped with the realisation that the Ghost Intruder was also an _Eye Stealer _and-

Shisui blinked, the crimson of his eyes twisting and morphing. "You can give me proof," he disagreed.

The brothers, as one, regarded his Mangekyou with utter shock, their own swirling into existence and-

Their bodies froze, gazes locked, even as Shisui swamped their subconsciousness in a tsunami of oblivion.

….

They appeared in a world of fire and brimstone and ash, the ground hard with volcanic bedrock and the sky painted blood red, no sun or moon or stars to puncture the darkness beyond the threatening glow of another inescapable eruption.

They appeared in Shisui's Mangekyou and immediately leapt to action.

"_What did you do?!" _Izuna demanded, his own Mangekyou searing through the dim, crimson wasteland.

Shisui ignored him, thrusting his chakra and the genjutsu around them forward, flexed like a muscle. Mimicking his intent, the ground beneath them _rolled, _pitching and heaving like the ocean in a storm and spewing steam all around them from the lava lurking just beneath the surface. Madara was thrown backwards, his chakra unable to safely anchor his feet in this domain, where Shisui was _Kami, _and could only roll with the impact.

This wasn't Shisui's mindscape, nor was it theirs. It was a genjutsu, tempered and strengthened and the closest to unbreakable that Shisui could fathom.

He'd tried to pull Tobi here but the man had slipped through, intangible to the pull of his chakra as he had been to the force of Shisui's blows.

The reminder of Ob-_Tobi _only fuelled Shisui's rage and the world shivered around them like it would tear itself apart before the aching hole in Shisui's chest could ever be eased.

"_Why did he think you were his ally?!" _Shisui demanded, unhindered by the seemingly apocalyptic surroundings.

Izuna, prepared to lift his katana in defence of his brother, threw himself between the two once more. But he did not strike out, merely watching the teen before them.

"I _told _you," Madara braced himself as the ground trembled again. "I don't _fucking _know."

"How can I trust you?" Shisui yelled in response, gesturing with his own blade. Desperation curled like a snake between his ribs and he was so fucking _sick _of it all.

"Why _else_ did you bring us here?" Madara snapped back, risking raising a hand to gesturing furiously at the world around them. "If not to _try _and kill us?" He seemed to pick up steam, finally releasing his stubborn grip on his Clan Head composure and Shisui was almost satisfied by it, this fierceness resounding with much more truth than his strict persona had. Shisui couldn't cope with facades right now. He felt wrung to snapping-point, unsteady with what was true and what was a lie and whether the men before him even _existed. _"How-"

"-do I have the Mangekyou?" Shisui finished the older man's question. The teen nodded to Madara's own, gaze flicking to Izuna's for the briefest of seconds. "Surely, you _know_."

Around them, the world seemed to _shiver, _trembling but not buckling as Madara's own Mangekyou writhed within Shisui's genjutsu restraints.

The sky flickered, blood red darkening to-

_Night sky over rows of houses, small streets and the feeling of a hand around the throat._

_Bodies in the streets, dark pools like ink, the stillness of a graveyard with the corpses unburied and no-one left to cry out in mourning._

_"No-!" _Shisui's voice, the whisper of ruthless torture and an immortalised tragedy, echoed across the wasteland.

Shisui, standing solid in his own illusion, clenched his fists until the knuckles stretched his skin white and breathed in the reassurance of the pain of his broken arm. This was...real.

Madara stared up at the sky with regret, dark eyes grim. His Mangekyou relented and Shisui could barely bring himself to believe the growing understanding and regret in the older man's solemn gaze.

"Tragedy," Izuna murmured. "Your village."

He wasn't correct - _Shisui's Mangekyou had been the stupidest form of selfish, jealous… there had been a reason he had hated the esteem the Elders had regarded his Mangekyou, even more than their sickening satisfaction at the proof of his own bone-deep grief and regret - _but Shisui didn't correct him.

"What would you have us do?" Madara intoned, deep and deliberate, as he eased his feet beneath him once more. "As a sign of good faith."

Shisui paused, chest heaving. _A show of trust…_ Something… something that couldn't be linked to a… an illusion.

A truth that Shisui couldn't incorporate into a fake reality, even subconsciously forced by Tobi's own Mangekyou.

_A hole in Konoha's history..._

"Tell me," Shisui slid his tantō away, the slither of metal slipping into a sheath echoed by Izuna doing the same. "What is your history with Senju Hashirama?"

Madaras nostrils flared at the teen's impudence. "_Why_."

Shisui spat a laugh, sharp and incredulous. "Just as you said; Good faith. You want answers? Well so do I. And," he jabbed a finger towards his own furiously spinning Sharingan, "if you want to know what I do…" He left the sentence hanging, nodding to their volcanic surroundings. Izuna watched him carefully, eyes shrewd. "Well, we're in my domain, Madara-sama. What _is _your relationship with Hashirama?"

"They were friends as kids," Izuna suddenly spoke up, rising to careful feet. When he wasn't shaken to the floor again, he straightened and folded his arms.

Madara turned slowly to stare at his brother, eyes wide as though gazing upon the apparition of a ghost. "You knew-"

Izuna scoffed, mouth twisting bitterly, and he kicked a foot through a curl of smoke from the drifting embers. "What, did you think I didn't _notice_?" The question was bitter and spoke of years of silence. Shisui abruptly felt like an intruder, in his own genjutsu. Didn't feel like it was two against one so _strictly._..

Madara swallowed hard, throat bobbing above the collar of his deep red armour. He looked back at Shisui and the teen didn't think he'd ever seen the Clan Head so… open. The thought was invasive, jarring, and Shisui floundered helplessly at the realisation that Madara, the deeply private Leader he had exchanged few words with, appeared more man now than ever. When he finally spoke, his voice was raw. "It was a long, long time ago."

Shisui watched them both, noting the careful, _fragile, _tension between the brothers. Tried to imagine Madara befriending a Senju, his _counterpart _in the enemy ranks. Apparently conceal it from Izuna too. "How is that...possible?" Rage had given way to frustration but now pure disbelief was surfacing. The world around them had ceased erupting, the floor solidified and the sky, whilst still a dark and foreboding red, no longer flurried brimstone and hot ash.

"I didn't know who he was!" Madara shouted, standing as well and running his hands through his wild hair as if he didn't know what to do with himself. "I thought-" his voice dropped, as quiet as the ever-present rumble of the earth below them. Without conscious thought, both Izuna and Shisui had drawn closer. "I thought he was just some local idiot. We talked about peace."

Shisui's breath caught. He glanced at Izuna, who's dark eyes stared back for a scant moment before darting away. Izuna looked… tragic, a portrait of a storm-darkened warrior. Sadness and frustration and defensiveness visibly whipping into a whirlwind inside him. The teen's eyes trailed back to Madara. "And…" he scarcely dared ask but- but Shisui had to _know. _"Do you still want that?"

Madara didn't answer him.

Shisui was terrified by the creeping hope lodged deep in his chest. Hope, Shisui had learned, was often swiftly beaten back by reality and loss, tempered so that the raging fire in his breast could never grow beyond those tentative ever-glowing embers. But this _was _proof. _This is real. This is happening. This is how-_

_Konoha. My village._

Shisui's neck twisted towards Izuna again, arms itching to mirror Izuna's stance but halted by the _agony-shatter-broken _of his elbow. Shisu could ignore the pain for a good while longer. He had to. Now wasn't the time - or place - for a rudimentary splint. Shisui couldn't let this topic slip from his grasp now, so close to finally _talking _about the village Shisui missed like a severed limb. Izuna was the key here, the player who had been so stark in their absence in Shisui's history books. Madara's last brother; The Final Tragedy, as he was often referred to by the Elders.

_How had Madara done it_? How had he agreed to a ceasefire and treaty alone, making peace without anyone at his shoulder and knowing that his brother was dead because of Tobirama? _Did they know… who had killed their other brothers?_

Were those faces in the crowd too?

"Madara and," Izuna's voice had pierced his brother's silence with conviction only to stumble over the Senju Head's own name. The older kenjutsu-wielder soldiered on, eyes fastened on the horizon and lips slanted unhappily. "And, _Hashirama _wanted peace."

Shisui's heart thumped. His mouth was dry as the Suna desert. "And you, Izuna?" he rasped.

The Heir's eyes dragged across the landscape, reluctant to meet Shisui's own but resigned to it. They gazed at each other for a long second and Shisui wondered if Izuna could feel the change in him, see it in his eyes. The rabid desperation for _home, _for _Konoha, _that clawed at Shisui's heart and lungs. Konoha, at any time, would be a blessing and a comfort and a _necessity _for him.

But Izuna was alive now.

Tobi was wrong, there was no way a false reality could exist and continue to _ensnare _so faultlessly within Shisui's own Mangekyou genjutsu-scape. This place was an invented destination, it's current design still anchored in his most recent spar with Itachi-kun, and the relief that Tobi _was _wrong - _why should he have believed him anyway, a murderer and a traitor and a bastard and - _almost collapsed Shisui's knees beneath him.

He could shake apart later. Bawl and scream and never sleep again at the revelations of the morning but-

Izuna was alive. Shisui had changed _history._

And they needed him to believe in Konoha too.

As if reading Shisui's thoughts, Izuna's lips quirked. It wasn't a smile, lacking any trace of good humour at all. Sardonic and rueful and more than a little mocking and then Izuna refocused on his brother and opened his mouth. "_We're shinobi...For every Uchiha death, there has been a Senju death. And for every shinobi death, countless innocents and civilians have died_."

Shisui's breath left him all at once.

Izuna-

Izuna had _quoted him._

"Izuna," Madara gazed at his brother in disbelief, visibly shaken by Izuna's admission, perhaps in not so many words, that the feud should end. And not by the annihilation of the enemy.

Nostrils flaring, brows pinched, Izuna did not bear the attention well. "It's unrealistic," he snapped.

Shisui couldn't hold his tongue any longer. "Only if you say it is."

Izuna sneered, deeply unimpressed, before he seemingly refocused, attention shifting before his Mangekyou faded to the usual Sharingan. "Enough of that," he insisted, turning to survey the landscape now that he'd deemed tempers sufficiently cool enough to allow for curiosity. "What Genjutsu is this?" His chakra flared but, like before, Shusui's scape was unaffected.

Shisui paused, mused on what cards he could afford here, and then decided that caution was a shinobi staple he just couldn't live without. "It's not tethered around you," he admitted. The genjutsu actually worked by merging with the individual's senses _and _chakra network. Many genjutsus could be identified by faults in the details, whether visually or by sound or another sense, or because the person's own chakra shifted and shattered the 'glass web' of the illusion.

This aspect of Shisui's Mangekyou allowed for the genjutsu to, for lack of a better term, _encase _the individual. The genjutsu was sensitive to shifts in environment and chakra and _moved _accordingly. Madara had pressured a reaction from Shisui himself earlier by using his own Mangekyou in attacking the teen's own mind in his search for answers. As an extension of Shisui's imagination, those… traumatic…. Sequences had filtered through, if only for the briefest second.

The Mangekyou wasn't perfect or unbeatable. Shisui had had to train it and teach himself it's unique capabilities… he just… never met someone who could-

"Is this why Tobi wants your eyes?"

Shisui hissed in his next inhale through his teeth.

This was a fucking conundrum. _Yes, he wants my eyes to return to the future, although, considering he's my batshit brother, I think he's also motivated by homicidal spite and delusions of false reality. He's poorly adjusted, you understand._

Maybe, perhaps- _he slaughtered every other Sharingan user in my time, he probably wants to tick me off his checklist._

Shisui didn't want to say _anything_. But Izuna's tone had been deceptively curious and Madara's eyes weighed heavy with expectation.

They'd tossed in their bet, answered truthfully.

What good was a show of trust if Shisui was to renegade at the very first opportunity?

_I don't want to be betrayed again. _The thought was fleeting but persistent, niggled _in _there in his brain and impossible to shake. It was the prayer of an orphan left alone, of the last-standing teammate, of a boy faced with ROOT and a boy faced by the murderous intent of a brother he had mourned and enshrined in his heart.

But, Shisui almost smiled. It wasn't a nice smile. He was a shinobi and, unlike samurai, the code of honour was a grey area at best. Betrayal would always tarnish. He needed Madara and Izuna to trust him, back him up like - he begrudgingly admitted, carefully thinking back on the fight- they already had done, and to ensure Konoha existed.

(-_he also needed them to trust him for his own sanity. He needed to trust them. Shisui, for all he was a shinobi and a child 'prodigy' in battle and a murderer and an ANBU, was a sociable creature. He needed company, to feel that particular brand of camaraderie and warmth and protection and belonging that was so special about friendships. He couldn't bare to survive alone-)_

So Shisui, offering up a prayer to whatever Kami could be listening and hoping it was a benevolent one, opened his mouth. "My Mangekyou forms… unique genjutsu," he waved his uninjured arm around the scape, suddenly feeling deeply unsettled by the attention and his decision to speak out. "Combined with Tobi's own…" His voice trailed off, uncertain. _Tobi thinks I wove a false reality around us both._

_I think we punched a hole and fell backwards._

"...Tobi's Mangekyou," Madara mused, rolling the words around his mouth and though they contained a hundred depths of flavour that he just couldn't place. A long, pregnant pause and, with a shuffle of volcanic gravel, Izuna turned to exchange a long look with his brother.

"Izuna and I," Madara's tone shifted, taking on a strangely dark softness. Like the soot of a fireplace, muted and gentle but still able to burn. His expression was contemplative, searching Shisui's watchful face like he could read all of the answers and liked none of them. "Were destined to go blind, not too long ago."

Something clenched with uncertainty in Shisui's gut. "Overuse of the advanced Sharingan," Shisui agreed. Even in his time, the Uchiha had found no solution for the deterioration. Even with the changes and advancements of technology and Tsunade-hime's revolution of medicine, many Uchiha - Shisui, with his Mangekyou, early start and full missions rota, included - could it resign themselves to half a life of advanced eyesight in exchange for blindness at the end.

Seemingly without thinking of it, Izuna's hand rose, pale fingers dancing lightly across the skin of his own eyelids. "So we exchanged them."

Shisui froze.

He… he didn't think-

_He didn't think that procedure really _worked.

And - Shisui's mind _spun, _scrambling through his memory of half-forgotten academy lessons and considerable more remembered Clan history sessions and -

And came up blank.

In their history, both the Uchiha Clan's final records and Konoha's, it stated that Uchiha Madara had taken his brother's eyes upon Izuna's deathbed. That the exchange had granted him the Eternal Mangekyou.

But-

Izuna, who had never been struck down by Tobirama's blow, had not exchanged his own vision for his brother's documented blindness.

Izuna who, apparently, _had Madara's eyes. _Before his deathly - or _not_ \- fight with Tobirama had even _happened._

_Did that mean- did they _both _have-_

Laughter, incredulous and rooted in something suspiciously close to panic, bubbled in Shisui's chest and he clamped his teeth over his bottom lip in an attempt to compose himself. Was anything in their history books actually _worthwhile?_

A hand, Madara's hand, slowly reached out and, when Shisui failed to shy away, gripped the teen's uninjured shoulder. The touch was firm but tempered by the kind of thoughtful gentleness that set Shisui's nerves on edge. It was the touch of condolence, hesitant and mindful of feeling and…

"Shisui-kun," neither mentioned the return to the original honorific, although it somehow felt significant regardless. "Who _is _Tobi?"

Shisui's breath stuttered and, mouth parted, the teen imagined that he could taste the ash still swirling lazily through the air. He _knew _why Madara was asking that question, the brothers huddling into his private space as though, despite Shisui dragging them here to demand answers in the psychological security of his Mangekyou's higher ground, they could bolster his resolve by wordless proximity alone.

Shisui knew why Madara was asking.

He knew why Madara had paused, breathing hitched, when Shisui had referenced that his pursuer possessed the same advancement, the same _Dojutsu, _that marked the three of them 'above' their Clansmen. Why Izuna had dared reveal their exchange of eyes - _which Shisui didn't even know was possible at this time without Tsunade's healing, no matter the kind of techniques the Clan seemed to have, and to leave no scars or weakness of vision… _

To take another's eyes, for them to function correctly and for the transfusion of chakra to take root, required a level of harmony relatively unseen beyond the closest of kin.

_They knew_.

Grief, great and tidal and _persistent, _locked Shisui's throat so tight that he could scarce draw breath. He couldn't bare it, could hardly function with the realisation in his own _mind. _Unable to refer to _him _by any other name than the moniker he had introduced himself with.

And now, Shisui couldn't even begin to adjust to the knowledge that the brothers _understood_ that Shisui wasn't just being hunted by a shinobi with a terrifyingly unknown skillet.

_He was… he was his-_

His fingers were trembling violently and it was beyond Shisui, raising them to press to his brow, to stifle the motion. His eyes cast downwards, head dropping as though his neck couldn't bare the weight of it any longer.

Sobs ached to be released in his chest but his eyes were dry and Shisui felt entirely incapable of anything beyond breathing.

Madara's fingers, tense with an emotion that Shisui, feeling how the older man's chakra seethed and simmered at Shisui's wordless confirmation, didn't dare to identify as anything beyond _furious._

But it was Izuna, voice shattering the oppressive silence so abruptly that Shisui could have flinched, who started swearing up a storm beneath his breath. "Traitorous _shitstain-"_

"Izuna," Madara rebuked him in a low growl.

"I should've _skewered _him-" the younger brother raged, ignoring Madara and twisting around pace a short length before looping back. "I'm going to _desecrate _his corpse-"

Shisui burst out laughing.

He doubled over, mouth stretched wide and teeth flashing in the red light and Madara refused to let go. His stomach cramped, throat raw, and the cackles continued to spew forth, uncontrollable and inappropriate and Shisui couldn't _breathe-_

Izuna punched him.

The teen rolled with it, letting his jaw curve with the momentum and sparing himself a damaged anything-else and Izuna some bruised knuckles. The blow took him to his knees, his good hand planted to brace the weight of his torso as Shisui's teeth rattled a little. The hysteria muffled like fire faced with a bucket and Shisui was left to sink to the floor, strangely delicate.

"Feel better now?" Madara snarked above Shisui's head.

Izuna shrugged, shaking out his hand before offering it to Shisui. "Much." The younger teen propped himself up on his one good elbow and tried to settle his pounding heart, brain pulsing in time to each thump. And then, the world was in motion again. "Listen," Izuna insisted, lunging down and heaving Shisui up by his shoulders. Miraculously, his elbow wasn't jarred. Izuna clamped a hand on each shoulder and shook Shisui. Hard. "I don't give a Daimyo's ass about the fact that waste of fucking space-"

"_Izuna_," Madara warned, repetitive.

His younger brother ignored him. "That bitch?" Izuna could only be talking about one person. "They mean _nothing_." He stabbed a finger at Shisui. It was trembling, whether from rage or-

Shisui swallowed.

"We're going to catch that little fucker, Shisui," Izuna grinned. "And then you can deal with him, as is your right." In the crimson light, Izuna's teeth looked bloodstained. "Understand?"

Shisui sucked in a breath through his nose and cradled his elbow. Found a grin somewhere and pasted it on. "Perfectly."

….

The thick black lines that warped and curved through Shisui's scarlet irises slowed their sluggish turning, shrinking down to three tomoe before his eyes faded to their natural black again. For a long moment, as reality returned and illusion faded, he could see nothing but blackness.

Then the shadows shifted, the twitching of muscle and the familiar rustle of feathers, as Eiichi lifted his wings to reveal Ren-san's decimated garden once more.

His summon had crouched around his frozen figure, standing a short distance from Madara, with Izuna between them, just as they were. They hadn't moved.

A handful of seconds could have passed in reality without any bearing on what happened in Shisui's genjutsu. Those without the Sharingan's predisposition towards 'hyper-cognitive processing' would be _very _ill.

"Eiichi," Shisui coughed, coming back to himself as Madara and Izuna jerked to awareness. The teen brushed a hand against the wings bracketing them.

"Just so, Shisui-chick," Eiichi warbled, deep baritone and stilted accent, unfamiliar with the human tongue. The teen felt a prickle of heat at the name, sure that Takumi-sama had told his tale to warrant the familiarity, but didn't quite manage a blush. He felt too sick for it, from both the elbow and seeing the demolishment of the garden. Bringing back the hurt and frustration of Tobi, how he always seemed to _just slip away._

Like trying to catch smoke with his bare hands.

Genma had once chased a mark for seventeen months, slipping away and surviving a frankly ridiculous manner of 'natural' accidents. The brunette assassin had been furious with every new sighting, winding tighter and tighter until, finally, drowning the man in a thundering waterfall with his own two hands to ensure the state took hold and _kept _this time.

For months afterwards, he always triple checked his kills, doubting himself.

It happened to everyone, fights started and paused and started and fled and interrupted. Battle was messy and thoroughness was not always possible.

Shisui couldn't have that here.

Months of this? This waiting and fear-

He didn't think he'd make it, nerves shot to hell and triggered by the slightest movement. He'd be a sitting duck and the conclusion would be a sick kind of mercy instead of the retributionary fight Shisui ached for.

"Madara-sama!" Ren-san's progress across the garden had been largely unhindered and she collided with the Clan Head with unrelenting intent. "A four minute reaction time for the intruder alarm is unacceptable! That _Ghost _could've-"

"Murdered the Clan?" Shisui interjected, baring his teeth.

Izuna rested a hand on his bicep, whether in support or as a warning, Shisui wasn't of a mind to tell. "We're going to Tomo-sensei," he ordered, tugging the teen's arm. Shisui didn't move, eyes latched challengingly on Madara's. Waiting to see what he would do.

Madara inclined his head before turning himself towards Ren's considerably smaller figure. "The Guards are going to be patrolling more frequently," Madara promised, pitching his voice so Chiasa-kun could also hear, and Shisui blinked in grim satisfaction. "Shisui-kun has very _kindly_ provided a list of information on this 'Tobi' and we'll be scouting for appearances in the local villages and farmlands too."

It wasn't going to be enough but it was a start and Shisui allowed Izuna to push him back again, heading towards the sidegate and the road.

Shisui twisted his neck, curls brushing his collar, to meet Eiichi's beady eyes. "Thank you," he murmured, pulling his weapons pouch open and curling his fingers gently around Nari-chan. Her chakra had been shifting, healing the bones Tobi's careless slap had snapped like twigs, and Shisui had kept tabs on her vitals in the back of his mind. "Nari-chan-"

Eiichi immediately dropped his head, beak clacking open, and Shisui wouldn't dare to come between the duo even well rested and at full strength. He carefully placed the tiny crow inside the open beak and Eiichi immediately clacked his mouth shut and Unsummoned himself with a puff of pale smoke. The nest would see her back to full strength quickly.

Izuna's mouth had dropped open. "Did you-" he glanced at the space the huge crow Summon had occupied and he was going to have _words _with Shisui for pulling _that _surprise on them. Izuna had genuinely believed Shisui had simply adopted a blackbird and taken to talking to it. Most of the _Compound _did. "Did you just _feed _your pet to that Summon?"

Shisui stared at him.

And then, slowly like aching joints remembering motion and slow like the first spits of rain, Shisui's face twisted. His hand came up, covering his forehead, brows furrowing and mouth tugged in an almost-grimace and Shisui somehow found it in himself to smile.

…

Shisui's elbow wasn't shattered but was fractured and, whilst Tomo-sensei had healed it relatively smoothly, he had been warned to keep off it as much as he could for the next few days.

Izuna escorted him home, head tilted close to his own and their voices low-

_Tobi could phase through an attack but, so long as multiple attacks came at once, Tobi had to choose between where to phase out- _

_Yes, he could merge parts of his body whilst fighting and maintain his own grip-_

_No, for larger attacks, he would simply fade through the damage, although that did mean he let go-_

_Yes, Shisui had landed blows by forcing Tobi to choose his phasing on the fly and with enough speed as to force him-_

Izuna's eyes had glinted with thoughtfulness, no doubt running through the weaknesses and strengths of Tobi's technique, and a grim satisfaction every time Shisui had mentioned the - frustratingly limited - damage he had paid back.

Apparently, Izuna deemed Shisui's recent frostier attitude towards him a minor, forgettable hiccup in their road to friendship.

He was _ridiculous_.

When they'd arrived back at Ren-san's house, the sun had risen and breakfast was obviously over judging by the bowl of cooling miso and then tepid egg rolls waiting for Shisui on the kitchen table. In the garden, the brothers - Minori and Michi, he remembered, who dyed the fleeces - were raking the ruined turf into a smooth surface again under Ren-san's strict supervision.

"Come to the Guardhouse when you've eaten," Izuna demanded. Shisui, half way through tripping out of his sandals, wondered if they'd ever manage to regain any semblance of formality or if this was just _his life now._

The humour of the sentence was ruined, spoiled like aged milk, because yes. Yes, this was Shisui's life now.

The only way back would be by repeating the freak collision of his Mangekyou and Tobi's.

Shisui must've replied, satisfied Izuna's insistence somehow, because the older man let himself out and Shisui, ignoring the food, staggered into his room and slammed the door with unseeing eyes.

He was living here, would live here, for the rest of his life.

_However long that was._

Spine pressed to the door, Shisui slid down until his bum hit the floor and folded his legs as close to his chest as he could manage (_protect the soft stomach, the organs-)_.

"How am I supposed to…?" He asked the empty room.

Unsurprisingly, it didn't answer.

_What can I do? _Shisui begged himself. He needed to do something, something useful, before he went _mad_.

_What would Senpai do?_

No.

No, Shisui couldn't think like that. Kakashi would- if he saw Shisui's br-

Shisui knew how Kakashi handled his grief, kept it raw and personal and picked at the scabs until they bled afresh just to remind himself of the lessons learned and just to _feel _again. Shisui couldn't copy that. Couldn't fathom his Senpai's reaction.

Inoichi-sensei had been the only person Shisui had ever actually talked to Obito about.

He'd locked them in his office, just the once. Had listened to Shisui talk. Chuckled at the story, poured them tea, slowly introduced the harder questions.

Hadn't even blinked when Shisui had grown angry, had raged. Had laid gentle hands on his back, his shoulder, when the tears burst through and Shisui had _wept_, bitter and heartbroken and _lonely._

He was the closest thing to a father that Shisui had ever known. So different from the Uchiha, calm and funny with those pale eyes and long blonde hair that he insisted looked great even though Sora-sama, his wife, had grimaced at the mullet behind his head.

Shisui chuckled without meaning to, blinked and felt a tear drip down his nose.

He heaved a sigh and shuddered through the sob that followed.

His- Tobi- _Obito _had been missing for a long time. A decade MIA and he'd been _plotting, _that much was obvious. He had plans and he wasn't going to abandon them.

_"I'll do it all myself if I have to."_

Shisui lowered his head to his knees and let himself cry for the brother he'd mourned and the monster he'd been reunited with in the cruellest of fashions.

Outside, there was the clatter of voices and gardening tools as Ren-san patched up her garden, tone brisk and… just _getting _on with it.

His lungs finally relaxed, lips parted wetly and lashes clumped together.

Shisui had mourned his brother, had weathered the pain and the loss and set it to rest a long time ago.

Those scars had been clawed at but-

_-a single, dark eye, swirling into Sharingan red and gleaming with malice-_

Tobi wasn't his brother.

Obito had been carved into the Memorial Stone, his body unrecovered and his tomb lying empty in the Uchiha Shrine. Obito-nii had been but a child, immortalised in Shisui's mind with messy half-curls and orange goggles and a popsicle shoved into the corner of his dimpled smile. Obito-nii had loved him more than anyone in the world and Shisui had returned that love as much as his childish heart has been able, with memories of curling up together to sleep and sharing clothes and cooking for two when they were both so _young._ Obito had taught Shisui more than anyone.

_Tobi _was the lie.

And he'd run from Shisui twice now.

There wouldn't be a third.

….

A/N-

Me in ch5: Wow looks like I'm getting pretty good at this schedule thing!

Me in ch6: #PRANKD

I had this terrible intrusive thought after chapter five that I should only write when I absolutely want to and that updates don't need to be so strict. Which is like, totally valid, but immediately undermined the lesson I was trying to tell myself. Regardless, I noped out of the fandom for a while, meandered through some HP fics (revisiting my 2017 fic haunts was seriously like that meme? Bitch you lived like this? Also 2007-9 fanfic is a TRIP pfft) and finally circled back round to my blessed sunshine child, Shisui. Why is almost every fic I update about Shisui, you ask? (all two of them lol) Because I LOVE HIM. I will live and die and fight on the hill of Shisui (what shitty irony, dammit Kishi) and never stop

...this was a massive tangent, huh

Anyway, I hope you like the update, please don't pick holes in my plot that I had to restudy in order to write whoops, and I will delete anything mean. As always, don't like? Don't read~

Thank you to everyone who's been reading and commenting etc! Seriously blown away by the response to this fic. I have a discord and a tumblr ( x-authorship-x ) if anyone wants to pop by for a chat or whatever. I promise my reblogged meme content is funny ≧ω≦

Anyway, I hope everyone is staying safe and being responsible


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